


blue lotus

by thedeathchamber



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, One Direction (Band), The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Bottom Louis, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Physical Disability, Post-Hunger Games, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:34:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22251190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedeathchamber/pseuds/thedeathchamber
Summary: After the Second Rebellion and the dismantling of President Cowell’s regime, Louis struggles to make sense of life.A post-Hunger Games AU
Relationships: Louis Tomlinson/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 60
Kudos: 149
Collections: Bottom Louis Fic Fest 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While this is a Hunger Games AU, I don't think it's necessary to have read the books or watched the movies?
> 
> All you need to know is that it takes place in a nation called Panem, that is divided into thirteen districts and The Capitol, seat of the dictatorial government. The Capitol citizens have lived in wealth and comfort, while for 75 years "children from the districts were selected via lottery to participate in a compulsory televised battle royale death match called [The Hunger Games."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games)  
> This story takes place after the Second Rebellion, the civil war the ended that tyrannical regime in favor of a constitutional republic. 
> 
> * If you've read the books you know there were only a handful of surviving victors who voted on whether to continue the games or not with Capitol children.  
> In this story there are a number of surviving victors.  
> I tried to follow everything else, but it is possible there are some details wrong. 
> 
> Also for those who might be confused by the variations in the names, it is typical for the names of each district to hold some connection to that district's main industry. 
> 
> \- 
> 
> There is some non-graphic violence and mentions of death and drug use in this fic. No more than in the source material. I would say PG-13 level?
> 
> -
> 
> Writing this has been... something of an ordeal. Please never let me join a fest again because I... can't handle deadlines. My sincerest apologies to the mods. And thank you for all your patience and work on this fest!
> 
> -
> 
> I rushed to finish this. So please excuse any mistakes. 
> 
> Hope someone might enjoy this! Kudos and comments are very welcome and very appreciated, thank you for reading.
> 
> -
> 
> [Tumblr post.](https://louehvolution.tumblr.com/post/190387414636/blue-lotus-pairing-louis-tomlinsonomc-rating)
> 
> * And look at this [ absolutely gorgeous moodboard](https://louehvolution.tumblr.com/post/622739360465420288/ashleyjohnsonfanaccount-blue-lotus-by) mads made! Thank you!
> 
> * Also [this fantastic gif set](https://holdingthornsandroses.tumblr.com/post/628150507870076928/blue-lotus-by-thedeathchamber-after-the-second) Liz made! Perfect Mox!

Above all it feels surreal. 

His name picked out of a glass ball among thousands, after cheating death for six years, as every child in the districts of Panem had their name entered at least once from the year they turned twelve. 

Louis didn’t begrudge the relieved tears, or even the timid, shaky smiles, in the crowd, as he stepped forward and walked up to the platform. It was always easier when the tributes were older. He was eighteen and it was his time. _It is what it is._

He remembers feeling like a doll at the hands of his prep team, who fawned over him as he stood nude before them, skin goosepimpled with cold and face hot with embarrassment.

‘So pretty,’ Baroque sighed, a hand on Louis’ chin to tilt his head in different angles, while Whimsical nodded enthusiastically. 

‘Just look at those _eyes_.’

Diamandis pet his soft brown hair longingly—her own head shaved to reveal an elaborate design printed on her scalp. 

But Louis’ mentor had been clear from the beginning about the need to highlight his intellect, rather than attempt to win support from sponsors based only on his looks. 

‘It’s not that I don’t think it would work—you’re good looking enough. But pretty is forgettable. And you might not look so pretty once you’re in the arena,’ Seo Aoki had explained while on the train ride to the Capitol. 

His stylist had considered him thoughtfully, making Louis blush in spite of himself, as he examined him from head to toe. ‘You’re not just a pretty face, Seo says… Good,’ he pronounced, in the typical strangely accented voice of Capitol citizens. ‘People in the Capitol get bored of their dolls quickly. Dolls break. You need to be more.’ When he smiled the tips of his teeth glinted gold. ‘We’ll surprise them.’

Nonetheless, through it all Louis had known himself a wind up toy in the eyes of the Capitol, who would play with him until he broke and then discard him. 

He did break—again and again. But somehow he still kept running. For almost an entire decade. 

Louis wonders how long he could have kept it up if the Second Rebellion hadn’t come about, if he would have completely fallen apart eventually, or just been emptied out until there was nothing left of him. 

Despite himself and everything he believed in, there had been times over the years he had longed to just… go numb.

But Louis had responsibilities, in the form of his little sisters first—and afterwards new tributes—so that losing himself in morphling or alcohol as other victors often did, wasn’t an option.

The one extravagance he allowed himself after the Games, his one indulgence, was the flowers. 

Pushing back the crushing guilt—he was spending money on himself that could better go to something else—everywhere he went, he ordered flowers for his room. Whenever he threatened to disappear into his mind, even a single flower helped to keep him present: the velvet texture of the petals and leaves grounding, the sweet fragrances calming.

Louis had always loved flowers—though all he had known growing up was the images of them he saw on the television and the odd weed that flourished in a crack of cement. District 3 was nothing but cement and metal: row upon row of factories and blocks of dilapidated one room houses. And around it all an unscalable wall topped with barbed wire.

He had picked the rare flowers only when he knew there was rain or frost coming and they were bound to die. Then he would gather them in a handkerchief to take home, and that night his sisters would all wear a tiny flower in their hair for dinner. He would save one for himself, to dry between the pages of a book. They were fragile little things, once dried—crumbled in his fingers more often than not. But for a short period, he beheld and held something beautiful in his hands, and that was enough. 

The arena probably should have killed his love for flowers. 

They had been thrown into a barren desert, a maze of sharp rock and sand, with regular, blinding storms that left stinging abrasions on any exposed bit of skin and grit lodged between your teeth. But in that desolate landscape there had also been flowers: bright, extraordinary things like nothing Louis had ever seen before. They glowed at night, he discovered, and their scent was dizzying. Still he had been drawn to them, like a moth to a flame. 

It had saved his life… and cost him an arm. 

There was nothing that was not a weapon in the arena. Nothing that could not kill you. It turned out the flowers released some form of neurotoxin, that made it hard to breathe and impossible to walk upright. 

Louis had tripped headlong into a bed of creeping cactus with spines as sharp as knives. When he tried to stop his fall, three went right through the palm of his hand. A strangled scream escaped him before he shut his mouth hard enough his teeth clacked, aware making noise would be an invitation to be slaughtered. Panting, nauseous with pain, he had managed to pull his hand free, then crawled until he could no longer move. 

Through sheer luck, he had ended up in the space between two rocks, out of sight—safe while the Careers passed dangerously close, he later discovered. The Gamekeepers must not have thought being devoured in his sleep by a wild animal was the way to go either because they had left him in peace. 

When he woke up, he didn’t know how long he had been unconscious, but he had regained the proper use of his limbs. The pain was excruciating, from his injured hand to his shoulder, his fingers so swollen he couldn’t move them.

When minutes after drinking what little water was left in his flask, he had thrown it right up, Louis had been sure he was going to die from thirst. 

The last hours in the arena are a blur. 

He remembers the thrill upon discovering the carcass of some kind of armadillo, tearing into it, gagging but desperate, ravenous. The rotting meat had made him sick, made him throw up until he had fractured a rib and he was spitting out bloody bile, his throat burning down to his stomach. 

He still has no idea how he managed to survive. 

Louis tells everyone this. That he got lucky. That it was sheer luck. And instinct. And the peculiar savage desperation to stay alive, that all victors share. 

It’s nothing to be proud of, surviving the Games. 

People argue, remind him how he set up a trap that stopped a pack of mutated dingos from devouring him, as well as three other tributes. But no one mentions how he curled up next to the body of the boy he killed, trying to leech off the remainder of his warmth in the cold desert night, until he was driven away by the Gamekeepers with a swarm of locusts so they could remove the corpse. 

Louis can’t see anything he did at the Games as an accomplishment. He hadn’t even been aware he had won at the time, dehydrated and on the verge of septicaemia. 

Waking up at the hospital had been surreal too. 

It was hard to wrap his head around the fact that he was alive while all the others were dead. Twenty-four people and he had made it out alive. He didn’t even remember all of them. He had had shared an hour learning about edible plants—utterly useless in the barren arena—with the boy he had killed, but never exchanged a word. His fellow tribute from District 3 had been quiet and aloof in their time together, and he hadn’t seen her since he had fled rather than risk the initial blood bath at the Cornucopia. But she had been from home, and she was dead too, despite her strength. She had wrestled a lizard into submission, Louis found out, much later. One of the Careers had got her in the end, though, looped a rope around her neck and let her strangle herself, like an animal. A seventeen year old girl that Louis had seen lick strawberry juice from her fingers in wonder, one of the few times she had let her guard down.

It all felt surreal. From the white walls of the hospital room to the clean, crisp sheets on the bed. There wasn’t a speck of blood on the bandages... It had taken him a couple of minutes to realise his right arm was missing from the elbow down. 

Years later sometimes when he looks at his prosthetic hand—dark metals and carbon fiber—and his real hand next to it—nails bitten short and knuckles raw from the cold—it still feels unreal. 

The idea of being a doll, a plaything… a piece in someone’s game, sticks. As does the knowledge that anything and everything can be made into a weapon. Nothing feels safe, even once things start to settle, even with no more Hunger Games and President Cowell gone.

Then he meets Mox.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time they meet, Louis is lying in the dirt among the remains of his attempts at growing sunflowers. It’s raining and he’s cold, his clothes soaked through. But he can’t bring himself to move.

Maybe it’s the imprint of the desert arena, but Louis likes it when it rains now. He doesn’t take anything for granted anymore, after the Games—tries to relish every little thing, like feeling the rainwater running down his face. When he licks his lips, he can taste it. 

A faint chuckle cuts through the pitter patter of rain on soil. “Throwing yourself into it literally, hm?” The voice is deep, and wholly unfamiliar.

Louis jumps, catching a flash of light gray sky before he squeezes his eyes shut again. Lodged somewhere in his throat, his heart pounds fiercely, but he refuses to open his eyes. “Please either kill me or go away,” he croaks.

He hasn’t spoken to anyone in at least three days, he realises in that moment. Zayn only takes phone calls once or twice a month. And he hadn’t been to see Oli, because Oli would insist on cheering him up, and Louis needed to wallow. 

Over the rain and the thrum of his pulse in his temples, he makes out footsteps, boots squelching in the mud around him. 

“Sorry, but—” The voice is closer now, at his head, instead of his feet. Louis opens his eyes as he is pulled up in a practiced move into a fireman’s lift. “I’m not doing either of those.” 

Almost too shocked to be terrified, Louis lets out a squeak. Bizarrely, a part of him wants to laugh—this is surreal in an entirely different way than he’s used to. And it only gets more so when the stranger continues: “First lesson of taking care of a garden is taking care of yourself.” 

“What are you doing?” Louis gasps, upside down, perfunctorily thumping him on the back. He is thankful the man had gripped his real arm to lock in place instead of his prosthetic one, at least. 

“Taking you inside, where it’s drier and warmer.”

“I can walk.”

“It’s OK.” The man shrugs. “You don’t weigh anything.”

Flummoxed, Louis dangles as the man carries on toward the house. When he half expected the Capitol to put him down, he imagined a gun to the back of his head while he was filling up a bucket, not this. 

“I’m getting a head rush,” he complains.

“We’re almost there.”

Although he sets Louis down carefully, his head still spins for a few seconds when he regains his feet, and he wobbles in place. The man reaches out to steady him, one hand at his shoulder and the other right over his elbow, where the prosthetic attaches. 

“That was completely unnecessary,” Louis says, shrinking away from the touch. The man is taller than him, and broad in the chest, muscled—and handsome. No one has caught Louis’ eye in years—any thoughts of sex and relationships buried deep down—and he finds himself flustered.

“We would have ended up arguing in the rain, otherwise.” 

Louis frowns up at him, wrapping his arms around his middle defensively. “Who the hell are you anyway?”

The man smiles. He has a nice smile, full lips and teeth white and straight. “My name’s Mox.”

“Am I supposed to invite you inside?” Louis gripes, but he holds the door open nevertheless. It _is_ raining hard, and Mox doesn’t scream danger. Louis is past running from danger either way.

He stalks down the hall to the kitchen without looking back, but taking note of Mox’s heavier tread making the old hardwood floor creak as he follows. After putting on the kettle, Louis gets on his tiptoes to reach into the cupboard for a pair of mugs, all too aware of someone in the room with him. 

Mox clears his throat. “You should change out of those wet clothes.” 

Louis turns around to face him. “I’m fine.” 

Mox’s utilitarian dark green jacket is glistening with raindrops, but the material is clearly waterproof. Louis’ sweatshirt and pants are both waterlogged and caked with mud. His hair too, but he doesn’t like the idea of leaving Mox alone, in his kitchen, in his house. 

Eyebrows crinkling with thought, Mox stares at him. 

“Sit down, please,” Louis says as the kettle starts boiling.

He hears the scrape of the chair behind him, the slight squeak of his boots on the wet tile. Louis curls his toes inward as he prepares the tea, the marbled floor icy against his bare feet. 

After setting a mug in front of Mox, he takes a seat at the end of the table, cradling his own mug close. “So, who are you?” he asks without preamble.

Mox blows lightly at his tea. “A gardener.” 

“What?”

“Well, the proper title is botanical technician…” Mox says with a small, teasing smile. 

Louis narrows his eyes. “Is that meant to impress me?” 

Mox shrugs. “I know more about plants than you, is what it means.”

“That’s definitely not impressive,” Louis replies with a snort, before gulping down some tea. “Why are you here?” he asks, suddenly weary.

“I was invited. As a consultant for the district’s greening and landscaping project.” Mox grimaces as he takes the first sip of his tea. “Have you got any sugar?”

Louis gives a slow blink. “Are you serious?”

“I have been employed, yes.”

“I meant the sugar,” Louis mutters, even as he stands up to fetch the pot of sugar and a spoon. He holds the mug close when he sits down again. Despite the tea, he’s starting to shiver, his wet clothes clinging to his skin. “So who did you piss off to end up here?”

With the new order in Panem, movement between districts had become more frequent, but it was still rare enough, and most people were eager to head to District 1 and 2, and the former Capitol. Certainly no one visiting District 3 has ever come to wander around the Victors’ Village, where only he lives on a permanent basis now. 

“No one. I just wanted to see something different, learn new things,” he answers, stirring a couple of spoonfuls of sugar into his tea. Louis supresses a shudder. “I’m also here to help you with your... garden.” One side of his mouth tilts in a crooked grin. 

“Who asked you to come?” Louis asks seriously. His heart is racing in his chest again, and his hands shake so badly he has to put down the mug.

Mox’s face sobers immediately. “Seo. Seo Aoki.”

Louis studies him, letting go of his mug to twist the little finger of his prosthetic hand—it goes around completely with a quiet clicking sound, the mechanism in the first knuckle joint loose. It’s become a nervous tic over the years. 

He turns it twelve times, then hesitates—if he starts again, he will have to go another batch of twelve. “Did you watch the Games in 13?” he asks. As different as the Capitol citizens have always seemed to them, they were connected. The people from District 13, hidden away from the world for fifty years as they had been, sometimes feel more alien.

“Yes. Not… not like the rest of you did, but—” 

“You know who I am.” After eight years mentoring, even though he had not courted celebrity—in fact tried his best to avoid it—Louis had become well known in the Capitol and the districts. 

The ‘petit prince’ the Capitol had named him, a nod to his antiquated, unusual name, of a king from another age. It had amused them greatly, and stylists and decorators had scrounged up fashion and designs from centuries ago—powdered wigs and burnished gold, and velvet bows—for a new trend. Louis hated it all. His mother had chosen his name on a whim, after reading it in one of their books—family heirlooms, a secret and a treasure. 

“Yes. Or, as much as I can know without knowing you.” Mox’s eyes flit to Louis’ nervous fidgeting, a mildly concerned look on his face. 

“It doesn’t hurt,” Louis says automatically. Sometimes he wishes it did.

“OK.” Mox drinks his tea, but the line between his eyebrows doesn’t budge. 

Louis twists his finger another set of twelve, eyes fixed on the tablecloth with its pattern of flowers. He thinks of his garden, woeful in its dreariness. He needs something to do with his time, now that the Games are over and he’s done mentoring… before the ghosts consume him. Following Zayn’s example he has tried to find an escape, but everything he touches dies. He glances at Mox—it’s just like Seo to send him without warning. Seo, who is one of the few people in the world Louis trusts. 

“You'll help me grow flowers?” he queries in a small voice. 

Setting down his mug, Mox looks at him straight. His eyes are dark, like rich earth. And gentle. “Yes. If you want.”

Louis swallows, his throat dry despite the tea. “Alright.”

A slow smile blooms on Mox’s face. “OK.” 

Then he stands up all of a sudden, and Louis can’t help but recoil a little. Mox's much taller and broader, and for a split second he's afraid, legitimately afraid. For a moment he’s thrown back in the arena and—Mox is strong, and there is no way Louis could fight him off. Something must show in his eyes because Mox raises his hands in a non threatening gesture and sidles to the back door. “We’ll start tomorrow.” He tilts his head to one side. “Unless you come down with a cold.” 

Though his body is still tense, Louis rolls his eyes. “It was just a bit of rain. I've survived worse.”

Mox’s mouth twists to one side in a gentle, rueful expression. “We’re not surviving anymore, remember?”

Taken aback, Louis drops his eyes. That's what it feels like, still. He’s not sure he knows any other way to live except survival mode. Does anyone, really? 

“I'll see you tomorrow,” Mox says, from the door. Rain drips onto the porch from the canopy, but it’s stopped raining. 

Louis nods without looking at him. When he looks up, the door is swinging shut, and Mox is gone. 

-

He doesn’t get much sleep that night. Restless and the chill lingering in his bones, he runs himself a warm bath, music in the background, until he falls into a kind of stupor. 

The sun is higher than he expects when he wakes up, and he thinks Mox must not have come after all. But looking out the window he notices the shed doors are open, and several earthenware pots with dried plants have been taken outside, as well as the wheelbarrow. 

Quickly attaching his prosthesis and getting dressed, he makes his way over, his stomach in knots. 

His fears are confirmed as he steps inside the shed: everything has been moved around. “What have you done?” he gasps.

Mox straightens from where he was bent over some rusted watering cans, and turns around with his hands up in a placating gesture. “Just some inventoring and organising.”

Hands deep in his pockets, Louis looks around doubtfully. He isn’t even attached to any of it—spades and trowels, and old bulbs, and cracked pots. He just doesn’t like the feeling of being out of control. One minute to the next things changing with no warning.

“Why’d you start without me?” he asks, all too aware of the quaver in his voice. 

Mox wipes the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “You looked a bit tired yesterday. I thought you could… sleep in a bit.” 

“Mm.” Louis doesn’t remember the last time he had a good night’s sleep. Naturally a bit of an insomniac since he was little, afterwards it was stress and nightmares keeping him up, or interrupting his sleep. 

After a second, Mox starts to point out where everything is located, and a list of tools and supplies they need. His voice soon trails away, however. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Louis. I’m sorry.”

Louis crosses his arms, holding onto his elbows, and shakes his head.Their eyes catch and hold for a moment, before Louis hurriedly drops his gaze. He hesitates—“Have you had breakfast?”

“I have.” Mox’s lips curve into a small smile. “Have you?”

Louis shrugs. “I just woke up. And I don’t usually.”

“Remember that first rule I mentioned yesterday? About taking care of yourself?” Mox steps forward. He doesn’t touch him, but his hand hovers like he wants to. “Come on. We’ll talk about what to do while you eat something.”

While he makes tea for the both of them to warm up, Mox explains about the flowers they can plant in the autumn and winter, and how they will be preparing the garden for the spring months.

“It’s the dirty work mostly, at this time of year.”

“How much are they paying you for this again?” Louis asks, only half jokingly as he sets a cup of tea in front of him. After spilling some biscuits on a plate, he sits down to nurse his own cup of tea.

Mox shrugs. “I’m not concerned with money. Mind if I grab the sugar?”

“I do. But I won’t stop you.” Louis replies, though Mox’s answer has thrown him somewhat. As a victor he hasn’t had to worry about money in a long time, his annuity more than covering for his expenses. But it still feels odd to be so blasé about it, even though he knows District 13 didn’t work with money. 

He startles when Mox drapes his coat over him as he returns to the table. It’s heavy and smells distinctly of another man—but it’s a nice smell and it’s warm.

“Keep that on—I’m fine, and you’re shivering,” Mox says when Louis makes a move to return it. “But have you got a coat? You’ll need one. We’ll be doing a lot of work outside.”

“I’ve got one.” Louis gratefully tugs Mox’s coat closer around himself.

Mox nods, before making a dissatisfied noise in the back of his throat. “And you’ll need to have proper breakfast. Tea and biscuits don’t provide the caloric intake you need for this kind of work.”

Louis raises his eyebrows over the rim of his mug, pointedly taking a long sip. “You’re very bossy, you know.” 

Mox chuckles, and Louis finds his lips twitching. “Just practical. I’ve been around a few of the districts, and it’s the same everywhere, you lot aren’t very practical.”

The impulse to return his smile disappears in a flash. Louis regards him cooly. “You have no idea what it was like. You don’t understand… that was our freedom.”

“Bad decisions?” Mox counters with a raised eyebrow, and Louis isn’t quite sure if he’s joking or not, but he feels something like a laugh bubble up in his chest in spite of himself. 

“Yes.”

“Well, if it made you happy.” 

“Happy…” Louis’ lips twist. “It kept us… well, sane is a stretch, I suppose.” Human, he might have said—everyone sees District 13 people as robot-like in their singleminded efficiency, but Louis doesn’t want to offend. And he understands that they all did the best they could with what they had. 

Mox’s laughter catches him by surprise. “You’re funny,” he says, like a realisation.

Louis hums. Funny seems so distant from him, when he spends so much time miserable.

“Tell me more about what we’ll be doing.”

“I’ve brought some seeds—” 

“The birds will eat them,” Louis interrupts. He knows from experience. “Right.” Mox bites back another laugh. “I’m sure we can figure something out.”

Annoyed as his mechanical fingers catch and make him fumble with his cup, Louis frowns. “I don’t want to kill them though.” He hasn’t updated his prosthetic in years except to adjust the fit to the limb, and it shows.

Mox hands him a dishtowel to wipe the spilled drops of tea. “Of course not.”

“It’s not practical?” he asks, a corner of his mouth quirking. 

“Not unless you’re planning to eat them,” Mox replies with a grin.

Louis wants to smile, but it comes out as a grimace. “It’s not as rare as you think. If you can’t get anything else.”

Mox lowers his half eaten biscuit, expression somber. “I know.” 

He wonders if he knows from experience. If he has chewed on a tough pigeon or tasted the bitterness of magpie. That was a long time ago for Louis as well, though, and he knows he isn’t being fair. He pushes the plate of biscuits toward Mox, and gives him the leg of his chair a light nudge with his foot. “Have you settled in alright?” he asks, honestly curious. As a mentor he’s travelled through the other districts for years, and can’t imagine ever living somewhere else. 

Mox folds his hands on the table. “It’s… very different here. All the open skies, the fresh air…”

Louis would never have thought to describe District 3 like that. But then he supposes it’s a different perspective, after growing up in a bunker city. “Better or worse?” he asks. He thinks in relatives, not absolutes. “Different,” Mox reiterates. 

“I can imagine.” Though he can’t, not really, imagine spending all of his time entombed. 

Louis likes the windows in this house the most—they didn’t have those in the old house. He still feels trapped, with the windows open, but at least he can breathe.

“It rains a lot here, doesn’t it?” Mox comments. “We had alloted time outside for sunshine and fresh air back home, but we didn’t go out when it rained.” 

Part of him wants to tell Mox he likes the rain, ask if he does too; if he can sleep at night with the water hitting the concrete, the metal sheets of the roofs in town; if he’s stepped into a puddle and had it soak his boot yet, or if he’s ever jumped into one and splashed up to his knees—a universal experience in District 3. But the words won’t come. For all he said about bad decisions, this isn’t one he wants to make: getting close to Mox, falling for him even, developing feelings when there’s nowhere for them to go. 

‘You’ll get tired of it soon’ is what he says finally. The rain, the district. Louis. He might regret taking the job before long.

“I—” Mox shifts, and their knees brush under the table. 

Louis pushes his chair back, startling at the contact. “It’s not raining now. You might want to take advantage of that, get back dry—you’ve done enough for the day,” he says abruptly. 

It’s only noon, but Louis needs a moment.

“Sure.” Mox gives him a rueful smile as he stands up. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Don’t let me sleep in, or we’ll get nothing done.” Maybe it’s the saddened lilt of Mox’s mouth, or his self destructive tendencies wreaking havoc. He doesn’t know what possesses him to add: “You can have breakfast here. If you like.”

At the door, Mox smiles. “I’ll come early.”

-

They don’t talk that much, at first. Or Louis doesn’t, except to ask about gardening. Mox talks about his district sometimes. Louis listens and watches, guarded but drawn to Mox in spite of himself. More than once he finds a smile creeping onto his face. 

Although he tries to keep his distance, he is all too aware of them growing closer. 

One afternoon Mox reaches across the table as though to touch Louis’ face, before he catches himself: “You’ve got a little something…” he says with an awkward cough, pointing at his own face instead.

And Louis doesn’t flinch or jump back. All he does is scrunch up his face, wiping at the dirt on his nose with the back of his hand. A blush heats up his cheeks when he realises Mox hasn’t taken his eyes off him.

“You’re like a kitten,” Mox teases, but Louis recognises the look in his eyes. 

He falters for a moment, then pretends to scowl. It makes Mox laugh, and Louis feels a smile tug at his own lips. Their eyes lock again, until Mox’s gaze flicks to his mouth. Thrown off balance at the unexpected, undisguised attention, Louis ducks his head, and studiously focuses on the work. 

“I don’t know how to do it,” he confesses to Oli later that night when they meet up for dinner. 

“Do what?” Oli asks absently. There’s fish stew tonight, and Louis isn’t surprised he’s only half paying attention. Except, after swallowing another spoonful, he continues: “What is it you want from him?” 

Oli will sometimes come up with questions that are all too pointed, and Louis still hasn’t figured out if it’s sheer luck that he always hits so close to home, or if he knows exactly what he’s doing because he knows Louis so well after all their years of friendship. 

“I don’t know. Nothing. He’s just… my gardener.”

Oli gives him a look, the tip of his long, pointed nose still pink despite the heat of the stew. “You like him,” he surmises in his slow, deep voice.

Louis squawks. “What.” 

“He’s your type.” Oli’s tone is matter of fact. “I’ve seen him.” 

“I don’t have a type.”

“Mhm.”. 

“Shut up.” Blushing, Louis pushes the bread basket toward him. 

“Is he nice to you?” Oli asks, seriously, after a minute. 

“Yes?”

Oli nods, once, before returning his full attention to the food. 

Louis shakes his head, but he rolls his eyes with fondness. 

Over the years Oli had been his one constant, the one unchanging thing in his life.

After the Games Louis had expected… an easier life, perhaps. There were only three living District 3 Victors and, from a distance, they had seemed content—if a bit manic. 

Seo Aoki had his mother and sister, and was always busy with some project, inventing gadgets for the Capitol. While Bitbit Rexha had a string of lovers to entertain herself, and was a Capitol darling with her outrageous fashion choices. Jym Arthur was generally despised, as he enjoyed flaunting his wealth and power over everyone else. But he seemed happy enough. 

So Louis had returned, missing parts of himself—literally and figuratively—but with enough money to treat his mother and sisters at last, and to help others in the district. 

But things had soon started falling apart. 

First he had found his boyfriend, Chip, paired up with someone else. Louis hadn’t even found any words of accusation, it had come as such a shock, but Chip was quick to defend himself.

“What was I supposed to do? I’ve got needs.” At Louis’ stony look, he continued. “I thought you were going to die.”

That gave rise to a bitter laugh, as he tried to cover up the hurt. “Would it have killed you to wait till I was dead?”

Chip had never been one to admit to any blame. Always quick to turn everything on Louis. That, at least, hadn’t changed. “What’s with the outrage? Don't pretend you were ever in love with me. I could tell, you know—the only reason you let me fuck you was because you didn't want to die a virgin.”

Louis flinched, before steeling himself. “Classy, Chip.”

He had made little of it in front of others—a childhood sweetheart, of sorts—silly and sentimental to believe it had ever been anything more, and Louis didn’t believe in fairy tale romance anyway—but it hurt. And it had made him feel even more disconnected from his previous life, distinctly untethered. 

Even his family had changed. 

With his mother gone, the Capitol had got his sisters in its own way. Never as bad—they still remember, after all, what it’s like to wear patched up clothes to school and go to bed hungry. But the shallowness and greed of the Capitol had infected them; the admiration or envy of their peers only making the infection spread. 

Louis doesn’t quite recognise them anymore, wonders if he ever knew them. He recognises his failure, nevertheless, in becoming unreachable to them too. 

No one ever explained that surviving the Hunger Games was a life long thing—that you never really came back, and you never really escaped them. 

The memories of what you had endured… and what you had done. The preparations for the Victory Tour, and then the tour itself. It was a nightmare from the moment your name came out of that glass ball.

But for him mentoring might have been the hardest part. Louis had not expected to have to do it, at least not for a long time. But then Seo was offered a permanent position at the Capitol—at a time when an invitation was nothing less than an order. And Louis found himself having to step up as mentor at twenty years of age. Because the only other option was Jym Arthur, who bullied for sport and was one of those who took bets on the reaping of tributes, though he of all people didn't need the money. What choice did Louis have?

People say he was good with the boys: clever, thoughtful—caring, above all. But he wasn't good enough. He doesn't have a single surviving tribute in eight years. 

Bitbit manages one, at least, and somehow remains energetic even after more than a decade of mentoring, in a way that Louis, fresh from his own Games, exhausted to the marrow of his bones, could only marvel at. Seo is the same, though in his quiet moments he’s easier to talk to than Bitbit. Nonetheless, Louis felt the distance.

And every year, every loss, only weighed him down further, as to his memories of his own Games, were added the ones of his tributes. Some lasted longer than others—the third year he thought maybe, maybe the boy might just make it—but all of them died in the end. 

Their deaths haunt him.

-

Louis squeals at the worm in the dirt, jumping back in surprise. 

Mox bumps their shoulders together as he leans in to see, and chuckles. “It’s just an earth worm.” 

“I don’t like it,” Louis says in a hushed voice. The pale pink flesh makes him think of dead bodies, all of a sudden, blistering under the desert sun, or boiled in the jet stream of a geiser. He gasps at the flashbacks, and scrambles to his feet, stumbling as he wrenches off his gardening gloves. 

Mox stands up, catching him before he loses his balance. “Louis,” he murmurs, his grip gentle but firm on his forearms. “Hey, it’s OK. It’s OK. Look at me.” 

Breathless, trembling, Louis tries to focus on his face, his lips moving in a soothing murmur, his warm eyes.

“It’s just a worm. You’re safe.”

Louis nods jerkily, unable to take his eyes off Mox, for fear of seeing something else. 

“They’re good for the soil,” Mox intones. “We’re planting flowers, remember?” 

“Yeah.” 

They’re planting flowers, not unearthing bodies. The tributes he failed are in a cemetary some miles away from the town center. Louis doesn’t really visit. Their names, their faces, are all with him. It’s just their bodies over there. 

“I’m tired,” he tells Mox helplessly, after a moment. Though he no longer feels like he’s about to fall over, he can’t quite stop shaking.

Mox squeezes his arm, above the prosthetic, and strokes his other arm down to his wrist, thumbing at the thin skin there. “How about I make _you_ tea today?” he proposes in a soft voice.

“You don’t know how to make it right,” Louis replies automatically. 

Mox hazards a slight smile. “Let me give it a try?” 

He does alright. And it helps. But Louis can’t stop thinking about the worms that have eaten at his boys’ remains.

“Do you know what I like the most about being here, even more than the fresh air?” Mox says suddenly.

Louis looks up, questioningly. 

“The music. You have music everywhere, all the time. We didn’t have that in 13.” 

Even before Louis had been able to afford music chips, music had been a part of his life. 

District 3 being the main source of technology for the Capitol meant a number of engineers, who could do marvels with scraps and discarded parts. While the Peacekeepers kept a watchful eye in case anyone tried for communication devices, or weapons, musical instruments were allowed—until the Rebellion, when they smashed every last one they could find. When all else failed, people used their voices, but District 3 had never been silent. 

“Oh.” Louis frowns. “That sounds terrible.” 

Louis loves his flowers, but he doesn’t know what he would do without music. “What music do you like?” he asks. 

Putting on some music for them both, he forgets about the worms—the bodies, the dead—for a little while. 

That night he dreams of line after line of tributes in the earth, but when he touches them they rise and walk away, smiling. Louis wakes up crying and in pain, because he had fallen asleep with his prosthetic and it had pulled at his shoulder. 

-

The next morning when Mox comes around, he hides out in the bathroom, where there is an unending supply of water, and doesn’t answer the door. 

-

He opens the door before he can knock the next day, eyes downcast. 

“There’s going to be more worms,” Mox says bluntly. And Louis knows what he’s asking: ‘Can you handle it?’ 

“I’m OK now,” Louis replies. As OK as he knows how to be. “I’m OK,” he repeats, twisting his artificial finger around.

Mox waits, then touches a hand to his wrist before he can even think to start again. “Alright. We can start sorting out seeds. It’s raining too hard to do anything outside anyway.”

-

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better, they tell me,” Mox comments on the third day of unrelenting heavy rain.

Louis looks up from the seeds to squint at him. “Who do you know here?” he asks with a teasing lilt to his voice.

Mox laughs. “I _have_ made a few friends.”

District 3 is large and densely populated, and Louis has lost touch with a lot of people, doesn’t know his people anymore beyond the help he used to send out every year. Still, there is one name he recognises, that makes him wrinkle his nose. 

“You’re letting from Kelvin?” he asks.

“I am.” Mox raises his eyebrows. “Is he bad news?” 

Louis flushes. It seems arrogant to admit to the reason he doesn’t like Kelvin is that he’s been pursuing Louis for years, becoming increasingly jealous and petty when turned down. “No. It’s nothing.” 

Looking unconvinced, Mox hums. But he carries on after a moment: “I have a meeting with your friend, Oli, coming up.”

“What?”

“As the district leader’s PA.” 

“Oh.” Louis breathes out a bit of a laugh, covering his mouth with his hand. “Right. Sometimes I forget that he’s VIP now.” Oli’s knack for scheduling and his unflappable demeanor had made him a prime candidate for the job.

When he looks up from writing out a label for a packet of iris seeds, he catches Mox staring, a peculiar look on his face. 

“What?” he asks, faltering, smile dropping. 

Mox holds out his hands. “Nothing, I just… You don’t laugh often, and it’s—You have a beautiful smile. You’re beautiful. That’s all.”

“Oh.” Pleasure at the compliment warring with apprehension, Louis swallows hard, looking down at his hands. “Mox,” he whispers. “I don’t know what you want from me, but whatever it is, I can’t give it to you.” 

“Louis, I don’t—” 

Louis shakes his head. “It’s not about what I want. I just—I don’t think I have anything left to give anymore,” he says honestly.

“You’ve given enough, Louis,” Mox says. “Maybe it’s time you let someone else give to you?”

His throat tight, he flinches at the unexpected roll of thunder. That’s not how it works—Louis gives and gives, and giving is receiving, isn’t it; and Louis has had pieces of himself ripped from him, and now there’s nothing. And who can want him when he can’t give them anything?

“Louis, I’m sorry.” Mox hands him a bit of tape to stick on the label. “I … I didn’t mean to upset you.” 

Breaking out his reverie, Louis glances at him, realising only then that his vision is blurred with tears. He scrubs his forearm over his eyes impatiently. “It’s fine,” he replies, summoning a shaky smile. As he reaches for the tape, he lets their fingers touch. 

Later that night, he thinks of something he can give, still.

-

The next time Mox comes around, Louis stares throughout breakfast as he steels himself to take action. 

Everything was set. He had taken a long bath in the early morning, and prepped himself with a riot of twittering birds in the background, as the sun rose—at last, after the days of rain. His libido is low—has been for years—and he hasn’t done more than get himself off quick and mechanical, in months, so that fingering himself in advance feels weird… though less nerve wrecking than leaving it to Mox. He doesn’t manage to get the angle quite right, but it does make him want it, more than he has in ages. 

While his few times with Chip hadn’t been groundbreaking—awkward teenage fumblings, and Chip more concerned with putting it in than anything else—they were enough that he could fantasize about what it would be like if it was actually good. 

For all the preparations, however, Louis doesn’t have much of an actual plan of action. 

He clears the table as an excuse to have a moment to himself at the sink, gripping the edge of the kitchen counter as he takes a deep, fortifying breath. Then he walks over to stand between Mox’s spread legs, his real hand gripping his shoulder, his prosthetic cradled to his middle.

Mox looks up at him, brows furrowed in obvious surprise and confusion. “What are you doing?” he asks in a neutral tone. 

Louis leans down to press their lips together, hesitant and shy despite all his determination. Mox’s lips are soft and full, moving against his for a moment before they break apart. 

“This isn’t what I want, Louis.” 

“Isn’t it?” Louis makes as though to kneel, but Mox stops him, rising to his feet and pulling Louis upright with him instead. 

“Louis—”

“I can do this,” Louis insists, shaking free of the loose grip on his arm and reaching for the button at his crotch. 

Mox takes his hand and holds it to his chest in a light clasp. “But do you want it?” 

Louis replies automatically in the affirmative, but he can’t meet his eyes. He knows it’s not true—imagines Mox can tell too: his hand cool and clammy in Mox’s, and his pulse too quick at his throat, as Mox cups the side of his neck, thumbing at the angle of his jaw.

“Do you know the blue lotus? Nymphaea caerulea?” he asks out of nowhere, voice light and quiet. 

Glancing up at him, Louis gives a small shake of his head.

“It’s a rare type of water lily from overseas.” Mox’s smile is wistful as his gazes down at Louis’ face. “It’s the most beautiful flower I know. Like the sun in a clear sky.” 

Louis lowers his eyes, turning his face into Mox’s hand, wearied by longing and regret.

Giving him every chance to pull away, Mox gathers him into a hug, wrapping his arms around him with an unintelligible soothing murmur. And Louis lets himself be held, too tired not to give in when he is aching for this touch. He curls and spreads the fingers of his real hand over Mox’s chest, and clutches at the back of his shirt with the other, hoping it can stand in for some of the words that just won’t come to him right now. 

Mox doesn’t speak either, only runs a hand up and down the length of his back and presses a kiss to the side of his head. 

After a while Louis draws back, eyes averted, and goes to grab his coat from the hanger by the back door. “There’s leaves all over again,” he says, surprised by the steadiness of his voice. Sadness still pulls at the corners of his mouth, but he also feels… better—the warmth of Mox’s embrace lingering.

“Those trees need some work too.” Mox reaches for his own jacket, and shoots him a faint grin. “But think of all the mulch.” 

Louis snorts as he steps out into the chill air. 

Neither of them mention what happened in the kitchen again. 

-

‘You’re going to have to talk about it, at some point, won’t you?’ is Oli’s verdict when Louis confesses what had happened—he has never been able to keep anything from him in their years of friendship. 

“Can’t we just forget it ever happened?” Louis asks wryly.

“I’ve met him a few times now, he seems sound,” Oli says, stepping away from the holographic whiteboard on which he had been writing to give Louis his full attention. “Why don’t you give him a chance?” 

Louis’ lips twitch in amusement. “Are you giving him your blessing?” 

“Do you want it?” Oli asks, straight to the point as usual. “Because it sounds to me like he does. He wants you.”

“He could have had me,” Louis counters, spinning in the chair a little from side to side as he twists his little finger. “I kissed him. I was going to—”

Coming up behind him, Oli stills Louis’ nervous fidgeting, interrupting his count to twelve. “Maybe he wants more than just to fuck you.” 

“Mm. I don’t think so.” 

Sighing, Oli drapes himself over Louis, wrapping an arm around his chest. “You’re an idiot.”

“Thanks for the support.” With a breath of laughter in spite of everything, Louis reaches up to hang onto Oli’s wrist.

Oli has never shied from being physically affectionate with him, and Louis has never felt unsafe with him—even after the Games, when he started tensing up at anyone coming up behind him, or holding him in a way that made him feel like he couldn’t get free.

Even after a decade he can’t quite shake the fear, as much as he tries, as much as he hates it—it’s exhausting to have everyone feel like a threat. Or almost everyone. Besides Oli, there is Seo. And Zayn… but things with him had been complicated for a while. Although his sisters feel safe, they also feel like strangers, holding him at arms length for fear of messing up their outfit or make up. 

“But seriously, Louis… talk to him?” Oli continues in an undertone after a moment. “Give yourself a chance?” 

Louis looks down at the prosthetic hand in his lap—a constant reminder of what he had done and what he had lost… of every way in which he is _wrong_. Then quips: “Now that I’ve got your blessing?” 

“Exactly.” He feels Oli’s deep chuckle against his back, and in that moment the wrongness in him feels a little less. 

-

They don’t talk about it. But he lets himself touch, lets his eyes linger… lets himself get closer. Mox never pushes, but if Louis gives him an opening, he takes it. And the possibility of _them_ —whatever that means—remains.

It’s a bad idea. Louis knows this. It’s his weakness disguised as initiative, because he does want it… want Mox—even if he doesn’t know how, even if he knows he can’t have him, will never be able to keep him. 

Still he wants. 

-

After a spell of strong wind roots out one of the trees in the Victor’s Village, and causes a large branch of another tree to break right in front of Louis’ house, Mox declares the need to evaluate the risk of rupture and uprooting of every tree. 

‘They need to be able to hold up if it snows, or there’s another storm.’

It’s slow, dull work, and Louis spends three hours relegated to a safe distance, collecting sticks for firewood and watching Mox as he peers at trees up close for minutes at a time and tests his weight on them. 

The next morning, taking advantage of a nightmare waking him up ahead of time, Louis makes the executive decision to start on his own rather than wait for a repeat of last time.

Although Mox had explained what to look for he doesn’t quite know what he is doing. He also has to stand higher up on the ladder to be able to see, and some of the branches don’t shift at all when he puts his weight on them. 

Sweat is dampening the hair at the base of his neck after only a short while. Then a crumbling bit of bark jams several of the fingers on his prosthetic. It had been stupid not to wear his glove.

Swearing under his breath he picks between the joints, until he loses his patience and tries shaking his wrist out in an attempt to unlock the mechanism. For a second the ground seems to rush toward him as he loses his balance, his pulse deafening in his ears before he catches himself. “Oof.”

As he prepares to step down, gripping the side rails with both hands, he notices Mox striding toward him from the path, his face hard. 

Louis greets him, face hot in spite of himself and all too aware that his breath is still coming too quick. “Hi.”

“Can you come down, please?”

“What is it?” Louis asks with a small frown of confusion and apprehension at his distant tone.

“Just come down, please.”

Perplexed, Louis climbs down the ladder. His foot hasn’t touched the ground, when Mox has his hands on him, from his shoulders to his wrists while looking him over from head to toe.

Louis doesn’t recoil. “What… ?”

Mox steps forward to close the ladder, a frown on his face. 

“What are you doing?” Louis asks in bemusement.

“What were _you_ doing?” Mox retorts, voice tight. “Trees are not my area of expertise, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how you’re supposed to go about it.”

“It’s intuitive,” he argues, rolling his eyes.

Mox shakes his head. “It’s dangerous. Louis, you almost fell. I saw you—but I wasn’t close enough to catch you. Why didn’t you at least wait for me?”

There’s an intensity in his gaze that makes Louis timid all of a sudden. “I’m fine,” he says in a small voice.

Mox stares at him for a moment before looking up at the trees. “We might need expert help.” 

“I thought _you_ were expert help.”

The lines on Mox’s face smooth out, his lips quirking. “Not when it comes to trees. But I know someone, I’ll give them a call.” 

Louis makes a quiet noise of protest. He doesn’t want Mox going to trouble on his account. “I can—”

Mox shoots him a warning look. “I’ll take the ladder and everything else with me if I have to.”

“That’s theft.” 

“I’ll give it back… when you desist from being an idiot.”

Louis gapes at him, then finds himself breathing out a giggle. Like an idiot. He hasn’t felt this giddy with anyone since he was fourteen and Q made him a flower out of discarded bits of cabling one day in class. They had dated, though never going beyond a nervous peck on the lips—Q, who was a year older, insisted. Three months later he had been reaped, and died in the Games before his sixteenth birthday.

Warm and bright, Mox smiles at him now—and Louis once again forgets all the reasons why letting himself fall is such a terrible idea. He let him guides him back to the house with a hand on his lower back, and leans into the touch, yearning for more.

-

Louis isn’t going to lie to himself that it means nothing, that he isn’t hoping it will lead to something. Which means he’s almost as nervous about this plan as he was for the first one—somehow it feels like a greater statement, more intimate than getting on his knees could ever be. There’s also the fact that his plan is based on cooking and Louis isn’t the best cook. 

Nonetheless, he has some confidence he can manage a proper breakfast, rather than their usual buttered bread and biscuits and tea. He prepares bacon, cheese and mushrooms on bread instead, potato pancakes—burnt slightly at the edges—and a pan of honey muffins, which aren’t quite moist, but taste sweet enough.

Despite being rather proud of his cooking efforts, Louis feels a bit ridiculous as he sets the table with his best dishes—which, though a present from his sisters, still feels like excess because he had wished for them, enamored with the vibrant, solid colors. He completes the set up with a vase of flowers: a wilting bouquet of faded Chrysanthemums that he had been keeping in his bedroom.

After quick glance at the clock he dashes upstairs to fuss over his hair and the fit of his clothes on his slight frame in front of the bathroom mirror while he waits for the familiar knock on the door. 

It comes a few minutes later than usual, which doesn’t help with Louis’ nerves. Butterflies in his stomach and palms damp, he takes a last deep breath before opening the door.

“Morning.” His voice comes out high and breathy, worsening his blush.

“Hey.” Mox smiles at him, and Louis doesn’t miss how his eyes dart toward the dip of his throat, exposed in his nicest sweater, and the slight cock of his hip as he stands holding the door open—before he breathes in deep, eyebrows twitching with interest. “Did you cook breakfast?” he asks with a surprised chuckle. 

Louis pulls his sweater over his fingertips as he nods shyly. Before he can say anything further, however, Mox continues: “How did you know he was coming? And how come he gets more of a welcome than me?” he says in a joking tone, then turns to call to someone outside. “Loame!”

“Wh—?”

A stranger—shorter than Mox but powerfully built—approaches them at a light jog. In spite of his pleasant smile, Louis automatically shrinks back. “Who…" He swallows thickly, the butterflies in his stomach transformed into a painful knot. 

“This is Loame. Loame Payne, the tree expert I told you about,” Mox explains, but he sounds hesitant now, the laughter gone from his voice as he looks at Louis, forehead wrinkled with concern.

“I thought you were just going to call him,” Louis says dumbly. “On the phone.”

“I-I did call… for him to come over.” 

“Oh.” 

“Nymphaea…” Mox whispers, and Louis starts at the unexpected name. “Did you make breakfast... for me? For us?” 

Louis ducks his head, embarrassed. “There’s enough for everyone,” he says briskly, avoiding the question, though he supposes it’s as good as an admission. 

“I didn't mean to impose.” Standing awkwardly to a side, Loame wrings a trapper hat between his hands. 

“Not at all.” Louis clears his throat against the quaver in his voice. “It’s nice to meet you, Loame.”

“You too, Louis.” With obvious relief, Loame greets him enthusiastically. He lunges forward, hand outstretched, and Louis can’t help but jerk back, hitting the wall behind him. 

Loame holds his hands up, eyes wide. “Shit, sorry.” 

Face hot, Louis shakes his head. “Come in,” he says, reminding himself he's with Mox, whom he trusts, and who follows him in with a hand hovering over the small of his back, a worried frown on his face. 

He’s embarrassed all over again when they step into the kitchen—the table is too obviously set for two, one place at the end of the table and the other at the side… too close. He darts forward to move them farther apart, almost knocking the flower vase over. “You two sit down, I'm not really hungry.” 

“Louis.”

“Really, you might not be either once you try it—I’m not much of a cook,” Louis rambles on. 

“Lou—” 

“Just sit down. Please.”

With a heavy sigh, Mox sits, Loame following suit. 

Louis dishes out the food, and pours them all tea, before sitting down.

Mox seems reluctant to eat, but Loame scarfs his serving down. “It's good. Savoury,” he grunts. “No offense to District 13,” he adds, giving Mox a sidelong, teasing look. “But they don't have the best food.”

“You’re not from 13?” Louis asks, confused. 

“Kind of. But only for about... eight years now?” Loame butters a muffin liberally. “I was from 7.” 

District 7 specialised in lumber, that made sense. Except—“You left your district?” 

He had heard of a few cases, but as far as he knew no one from District 3 had ever made it out in his lifetime. There was too much surveillance after their role in the First Rebellion—no one could make it in or out undetected. 

“We had to,” Loame explains as he chews on a large bite of bread. “My dad was part of the resistance, even back then. My whole family had to leave in a hurry—Mum wasn't pleased, let me tell you.”

“Did... did your whole family make it?” Louis whispers. 

“Thank heavens, yeah. Well, my sister lost the baby she was carrying—she was a few months along. But it would've been worse if the babe had already been born.”

Thinking of the tributes he has buried, Louis can't disagree.

“She has two now,” Loame continues, shrugging. “It was tough. But life goes on, don't it?”

Louis takes a long sip of his tea. “Yes, it does.”

After a few minutes of silence—tense between him and Mox, though Loame seems oblivious, he excuses himself, wincing at the scrape of the chair legs on the tile. “There's more on the stove, help yourselves.”

This isn't the morning he was expecting. He hadn’t prepared for this, and he needs a minute to himself. 

Mox reaches out for him as he darts past, but Louis makes a quick retreat up to his room. 

Pacing as he twists his mechanical finger around, he takes a few deep, measured breaths. It's fine. Loame is here for the trees… And Mox is here for the flowers—not Louis. Louis just has to remember that. 

He can't take another hit. 

The knock on his door, despite being soft, makes him jump. Mox has never stepped foot outside the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom. “Louis, are you alright?” 

Louis presses the tips of his fingers to his eyes for a moment before walking over to open the door. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?” he says, not quite meeting Mox’s eyes. 

Mox stands somber and contrite in front of him. “I'm sorry, sweetheart. I should've given you a heads up I was bringing someone.”

The part of Louis that registers the pet name can’t help the rush of pleasure, but he’s too anxious to revel in it. “It's fine,” he repeats, tone carefully casual. “I’m fine.” 

Mox’s face only falls further. “Louis, you don’t have to be fine all the time. You can talk to me.”

Louis raises his eyes to him—considering, in spite of himself. “I—” With a tired exhalation, he finds himself tilting forward until his forehead is resting on Mox’s shoulder. 

Rather than say anything, Mox slowly wraps his arms around Louis, loose enough at first that Louis knows he could break free, then a bit tighter.

Louis turns his head, tucking his nose in the juncture of Mox’s neck. He breathes in his smell, presses himself closer to his warmth—counts to twelve, then again, five times in total, before stepping away.

He can hear Oli’s voice in his head, telling him to talk to Mox. But Loame is downstairs—Louis can hear the clink of cutlery. And he doesn’t even know what to say. 

“You’ll eat something, won’t you?” Mox says softly. 

Louis nods, and lets Mox take his hand and lead him back downstairs. 

-

Over the next week, he learns Loame _is_ an expert in trees, quick to laugh, and nice enough—but he stares, a lot, unsubtly. He stares if Louis so much as twitches, if he uses a word he doesn’t understand, if he forgets himself and sings under his breath, if he needs help lifting the portable forest winch, if he spoons honey into his hot chocolate one time they had worked till evening and they were all freezing. 

“What?” Louis demands one afternoon, finally cracking, while Mox is in the bathroom. 

“What?” Loame repeats innocently.

“You keep staring at me!” he hisses. 

“Oh.” Loame rubs his head, his dark hair cropped short. “Oh, it’s just… I’ve never met anyone like you before. It’s not an insult!” he hurries to add, when Louis opens his mouth. 

“I’m not sure how else I’m supposed to take that,” Louis mutters. 

“Not as an insult!” Loame insists, round eyed. 

“Right.”

Mox looks from one to the other as he walks back into the kitchen to find them sitting in silence. “Everything OK?” he asks. On his way to his seat he rests a hand on the back of Louis’ chair—casual, unthinking. And though Louis is hyperaware of it, he doesn’t flinch… he doesn’t actually mind. 

“It’s fine,” he answers, when Loame remains abnormally quiet, looking nervous. Louis is somewhat confused and vaguely annoyed, but he isn’t scared. “We were just discussing whether Loame might need glasses.”

“Oh?” There’s a hint of amusement in Mox’s voice that tells Louis he knows they were not talking about that. Before he sits down he gives Louis’ shoulder a light squeeze. It feels right.

-

Loame somehow guilts him into attending a farewell dinner he is hosting before he leaves the district for the winter. 

Louis had known he was boarding with the baker and his daughter, but he hadn’t been aware the family was now running some form of inn in what used to be the mayor’s house. He sometimes goes into town to see Oli and had spied more than a few unfamiliar faces at times, but he hadn’t been aware the number of visitors had grown so much an inn had become viable, even a need for the district. 

It puts him on edge when he hears the unmistakable Capitol accent from the entrance hall while they are eating. Instinctively, he searches for Mox, but he had been seated at the other end of the table, and his attention is elsewhere.

The baker’s daughter has been flirting with him since he walked through the door—him and every eligible man in the room. Meganne is pleasant to Louis, but distant as she immediately discerned his clear preference.

Feeling rather out of place in the group of district administration employees and consultants, Louis considers Meganne as he works on his soup. He’s prettier than her, he thinks, in spite of himself—at least he was, before pain drew his face in sharper lines and angles, and grief dulled his eyes. Still, his eyelashes are just as long and thick as hers, if not more so, and his waist trimmer, for what it’s worth. But she doesn’t flinch or cower, like he does, and she stands with her her back unbent, head high. Bold, she touches where Louis holds back, guarded.

“She really liked you,” he tells Mox, afterwards. He isn’t sure what compels him—it’s the last conversation he wants to have, really. But the words are out of his mouth before he can stop them.

“Maybe, but I’m not interested,” Mox replies easily, wrapping an arm around him when Louis shivers, and pulling him in close. 

It’s a cold night, the sky red with imminent snow. Mox had insisted on walking him home, and Louis had not been able to resist. “In her, or in general?” 

“I like men and women, if that’s what you’re asking. But I’m only interested in one person right now.” 

Louis can make out his soft smile in the dim, orange glow of the street lamp, and his own lips quirk upwards helplessly in response. 

At Mox’s warm, unwavering gaze, he lowers his head, blushing. But he fits himself closer at his side, under his arm, and doesn’t pull back until they reach his doorstep.

-

Most of the districts in Panem held on to some form of winter celebration tradition, even if it was as simple as getting together for a special meal. So it doesn’t come as a surprise when Mox tells him he will be going back home for a couple of weeks. The realisation of just how much Louis will miss him does, however. Even if Louis has his own plans: the usual dinner at Oli’s with his family; catching up with Seo and lunch with his sisters. And this year, Zayn—for more than a telephone call.

The moment movement between districts had become possible, Zayn had invited him over. But Louis had not been in the right frame of mind. He is not altogether sure even now, if it’s a good idea to visit—it’s been four years since he last saw Zayn, and their whole world has been turned upside down in that time. Good idea or not, however, he wants to see him. 

Louis wasn’t prepared for how disconcerting it would be to wait around for the train instead of being ushered in by Peacekeepers. The cheeriness in the air—so different to the tense, sombre atmosphere after every reaping—is even more unsettling. It’s strange to take a train that isn’t speeding toward almost certain death, or celebrating it—as with his Victory Tour. 

Taking his hand, Mox rubs his thumb across his knuckles. ‘It’s cold’ is all he says when Louis glances up at him, startled. 

Mox keeps hold of his hand as they are shown to their seats, and doesn’t let go until the food and beverages trolley comes around, so he can press a cup of tea into his hands. 

It’s only then that Louis becomes aware of how clammy his hand is, and comes back to himself. “Mox, I—” He looks around in a bit of a daze—it looks different inside, remodelled to accommodate a greater number of passengers, who aren’t sentenced to death. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Mox asks in a careful voice. 

“Freaking out, I guess.” Louis fixes his fringe in a nervous gesture, mechanical fingers twitching. Mox shakes his head with a small frown, but Louis barrels on: “You always seem so… unphased, by everything. I must seem ridiculous to you.”

Mox makes a quiet, incredulous noise. “Please tell me you don’t really think that,” he says imploringly. “Louis, of course not. The things you’ve been through… And I saw what, less than half of it, on a screen?”

Chin to his chest, Louis hums. “The epidemic in your district, though.” There had been several epidemics in District 3 in his time, disease spreading easily due to the close quarters and confined work environment, but none as deadly as the one that had decimated so much of 13’s population some years back.

“It was terrible. But in 13 it’s—” He bumps a fist against the arm rest a few times, searching for the right words. “We’re an unit, in 13. I don’t know how to explain it, really. Except that even in your grief, you’re not alone.”

“That sounds… nice.” Nonetheless, Louis reaches out for a comforting touch, resting his hand on Mox’s wrist.

“It wasn’t perfect. I can see that now more than ever. But it kept us alive. And sane, more or less.”

“That’s something,” Louis replies with a shadow of a smile. He isn’t really joking, though. Sanity in their circumstances is something that can’t be taken for granted. 

Mox chuckles. “It is. Now we’re looking for a way to be… happy, I guess.” 

“Now that’s ambitious.”

Mox’s eyes look into his unflinching. “But not impossible.”

Louis drops his gaze, but lets his hand trail down to give his fingers a light squeeze. When Mox threads their fingers together, he doesn’t pull away from him. 

An hour later, as he returns from a quick trip to the bathroom, a young man about his age sitting in the seat opposite, leans forward to greet him, thrusting his hand out with a grin. It’s unexpected, and Louis instinctively draws closer to Mox, who looks up from his notebook in concern. 

“I know you.” The man takes Louis’ limp hand, and gives it an enthusiastic shake. “I’m a huge fan.”

“Oh.” Louis has not stepped foot in the Capitol for over a year now, but he recognises the accent, and the indefatigable, out of place exuberance. He has never been able to quite wrap his head around the thought of his fans. Yet he knows in their own way, they mean well; in their way, they do love him. “Thank you?” 

“I'm Niallicus. It’s so nice to meet you. I can hardly believe it—what luck!”

“Mm.” Louis fddles with a button on the sleeve of his coat, holding his arms against his chest. “It’s… nice to meet you too.”

Niallicus’ wide grin reveals unnaturally whitened teeth. “So where you headed? Don’t tell me you’re going to the Capitol, right as I’m leaving!?” 

“Um, no, District 8.” 

Niallicus lets out a loud, strangled gasp. “Are you going to visit Zayn?” As though on cue, tears spring to his eyes. He dabs at them with a checkered handkerchief, drawing attention to the faded green freckles on his cheeks. “It was absolutely tragic when he stopped coming to the Capitol. I always liked him.”

You didn't know him, really, Louis thinks, but only nods politely. 

“I do miss it all,” Niallicus goes on with the usual obliviousness of the Capitol. “I know it's better now, don't get me wrong—” he adds hastily, eyes wide. “I’m a big fan of President Paylor. But it was fun too, before, wasn’t it?” His voice takes on a wistful tone, and he stares at Louis, clearly expecting agreement. 

“Sure,” Louis bites out. 

Fun.

This man—his people—had watched Louis on the verge of death, wounded and starving and ill, for their entertainment. He wonders if he applauded when Louis started the avalanche that had killed another boy. If he had bet against Louis’ mentees and celebrated when they died. 

Louis doesn’t even notice he’s trembling until Mox pulls him closer with an arm around his shoulders.

“Breathe, sweetheart,” he whispers. 

Niallicus looks between them, eyes widening. “So sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude.” His eyes gleam with interest. “Boyfriend or bodyguard?” he asks with another wide grin. 

That actually makes Louis breathe out a weak laugh, even as his face heats up. “Gardener, actually. ” 

He feels Mox chuckle into his hair, while Niallicus laughs uproariously, as Capitol people do. “Of course,” he says with an exaggerated wink. After that, he leaves them mostly alone. But Louis remains tense, too conscious of him and the other passengers. 

As the train nears the recovered District 13 station, Mox and him prepare to say goodbye—Niallicus stares. 

Louis isn’t sure if he doesn’t realise that he’s doing it, or if he was so used to seeing him on a screen that he had forgotten Louis might want a moment of his own, might want to exist away from his prying eyes. 

Having an audience doesn’t help with his nervousness, and he tries to look anywhere but at Niallicus while still avoiding Mox’s eyes: the zip on the collar of his jacket, the small mole on his chin. Until Mox spins them around, so that Louis’ back is toward Niallicus instead—a semblance of privacy. 

He cups Louis’ face in his palm, thumbing at his cheek, until Louis raises his eyes to look at him. None of it helps with the lump that's been steadily growing in his throat for the past hour. “Nymphaea,” he murmurs. “It's going to be alright. You're going to be alright.”

“I know,” Louis replies. But his voice thick, and he finds himself leaning into the touch. 

“I'll see you in a couple of weeks.” 

Releasing his breath in a slow, shuddering exhale, he nods. “Have fun.” 

“That’s a bit of an alien concept in 13,” Mox jokes. 

Louis breathes out a weak laugh, then bites his lip hard. “Be safe.” 

As the train comes to a stop, he rises on his tiptoes to hug Mox, throwing his arms around his neck. 

Mox holds him close, hands low on his back. As he bends down to accommodate their height difference, Louis hides his face in the crook of his neck. As he draws back he lets his lips brush along Mox’s jaw. It’s an intimate gesture, and his cheeks flame immediately afterwards, but Mox doesn’t comment, only presses a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth before he has to get off, as the doors beep their final warning. 

Louis waves once through the window, then heads back to his seat, stiff legged, chest tight. 

Niallicus leans in close again, smiling. “You two are cute. You and Zayn, though,” he adds after a beat, with a sigh. “I worked in TV production, you know? The camera loved you both. You two could have done anything and it would have been a hit in the Capitol.” He shakes his head. “What a waste.”

As he settles back in his seat, still muttering to himself, Louis turns to look out the window. 


	3. Chapter 3

Zayn picks him up at the station in a simple wooden horse cart. They stare at each other for a long minute in silence. Louis had been on television until the last year and nothing had changed, except perhaps he might have gained a pound or two. But looking at Zayn is almost like learning him all over again. 

Despite his nickname of the little prince at the Capitol, Louis’ prep team had always made a point of understated fashion and styling for him. ‘All we need to do is accentuate,’ Diamandis would trill in constant reminder of his stylist’s instructions. 

Zayn’s team, on the other hand, went in the opposite direction. They tried everything—piercing and implants, body paint and dramatic make up, every hair color imaginable. Every designer in the Capitol wanted to dress him, and sent him outfits for every occasion, so there were nights he would change two or three times for one show. 

Zayn loved the inventiveness, the limitless aesthetics… and hated everything else. ‘It’s art. No matter what else, it’s art,’ he would repeat time and again whenever he drank too much, as he traced the lines of his face with two fingers, smudging his make up.

For five years it had been them against the world, even if Zayn was bound to solicit sponsorships for the tributes of his own district. Still, he was there for Louis whenever he lost one of his boys in the arena, and Louis sat with him in the sober spaces between parties and shows. 

They had each other—until Zayn retired to his cabin in the middle of nowhere in District 8. He never disclosed to Louis what he had done—or what he had had to do—to be allowed to disappear while he was still a Capitol darling. 

Louis had been glad to see him escape to some extent. But it had hurt to be left behind too. The first year without him had been one of the toughest with the loss of his youngest mentee yet in a brutal, gruesome death. Zayn had called him after, but it hadn’t been the same. 

Nonetheless, Zayn, outside of Oli, remains his closest friend. And Louis feels a strange sense of completeness being here with him, and a deep rooted pull toward him, though he looks so different—feels so different. He seems at peace like he’d never seemed before, with his hair shaved, and his beard thicker than Louis had ever seen it. 

“You’re a proper hermit in the woods, hm?” Louis speaks up at last with a rueful smile. 

Zayn squints when he smiles—that hasn’t changed. “I had my fill of people. And then some.”

Louis nods, but his throat tightens with the sudden threat of tears. “Of me too?”

“Never.” Zayn shakes his head emphatically. “Never, you know this.”

 _You still left, though._ Even though he doesn’t say it, Zayn can obviously read it on his face. “I had to get out, Louis,” he says in a low, urgent voice. “I had to.”

“I know,” Louis sighs. Closing the distance between them, he throws himself into Zayn’s arms, despite everything knowing Zayn will catch him. He does. “You’re not… ?” His thumbs feel about down his arms, that used to be speckled with the pinpricks of morphling injections.

His face buried in Louis’ hair, Zayn shakes his head. “Not in years.”

The tears he had been holding back for hours finally spill over, and he clutches at Zayn tighter. “Good. That’s good.”

Louis has trouble falling asleep that night. It’s not unusual. It’s not as bad as it used to be—the first year after the games, he would wake up paralysed in his bed, echoes of wild dogs ringing in his ears, and the image of snakes and tributes out for blood lurking in the edges of his vision, where he couldn’t escape them. But that had passed, eventually. For the most part. He still has nights he can’t even think of closing his eyes. The nightmares have never quite left him. 

Nor Zayn. 

Louis goes to him when he wakes up in the middle of the night, sweating and shaking, slips into bed with him and holds him, cradling his head against his chest. 

“I don't get them that often anymore,” Zayn mumbles when he’s calmer.

“I must have triggered it.”

“Probably,” he replies—just as honest and matter of fact as Louis. In this they are both past blame or guilt. “You weren't sleeping,” he continues after a moment, not really a question. 

“No.” 

“Still?” Zayn plays with the hairs that brush his shoulders. 

Louis shrugs. “Sometimes.” 

“Come here.” Zayn opens his arms for Louis to fit in them.

With his head on his chest, he can hear Zayn’s heartbeat and feel the faint vibration when he starts crooning without words. Louis closes his eyes, breathes in the familiar scents of vanilla and turpentine, and the unfamiliar: horse and fragrant pine. 

“You still writing?” Zayn asks after a while.

“Mm. Sometimes,” he answers sleepily. “You?”

“Sometimes,” Zayn echoes. “Been painting more.”

Louis nods into his chest, thinking of his gardening, how it’s not quite as fulfilling—distraction, not catharsis. 

“I miss it sometimes, you know? The morphling.” Zayn’s fingers tap a rhythmless beat on his back. “It made it easier to fall asleep again, after a nightmare.”

“I used to worry you one day you wouldn’t wake up,” Louis whispers, voice hollow. “I don’t miss it.”

The tapping falters for a second, then resumes. Zayn sighs. “It’s just hard sometimes, Louis… It’s hard.”

“I know.” He knows what it’s like to not want to wake up sometimes. “But every bit helps, doesn’t it?” Louis snuggles closer. “This helps.”

Zayn kisses the top of his head. “Yeah. It does.”

-

The days pass in a bit of a daze at the cabin, so far removed from human technology and construction. Louis has never been around so much nature—never seen snow so white.

At night they sit together in the circle of light and warmth from the fireplace. Looking out the window at night he can see nothing but the snow glowing in the moonlight, and the dark mass of trees beyond. It feels at once wondrous, and chillingly isolated. 

When it’s light, Zayn guides him around the countryside. The walks exhilarating in spite of the cold. They also mean being so tired come bedtime that he falls asleep in minutes and doesn’t dream at all. He wonders how far Zayn has to walk to get to that point. 

The week passes without incident, until late in the afternoon of his last day at the cabin. 

As they are heading back, Louis trudging in the snow alongside the edge of the river bank, Zayn comes to an abrupt stop in front of him. 

“Are you seeing that?” he asks, raising his voice to be heard above the dull roar of the rapids below. He sprints ahead to clamber onto a small mound, and stands still for a minute looking in the distance, shielding his eyes with one hand against the setting sun.

Louis comes to a stop and looks across the water, over the line of trees, toward where Zayn is pointing. There’s a white plume of smoke against the darkening sky. Different from the usual emissions from the textile factories that are District 8’s main industry. 

Zayn glances at him, a small frown on his face. “Can you make it back on your own?” he asks, feet and walking stick already pointing ahead. “You remember, right? Just follow the river to the bridge—you can see it from here—and then it’s straight for ten, fifteen minutes at your pace. I need to call, find out what’s happened.” 

Zayn has his mother in town, and a pregnant sister whose husband works in a factory. And he can make it back to the cabin on his own at twice the speed than with Louis, who is unused to the terrain and the long, meandering walks.

“I’ll be fine. I remember,” he says. “Go ahead. See you in a bit.”

“Yeah.” Zayn nods, distracted, then starts off at a quick pace.

Louis lingers a moment to fix his glove, which had slipped down on his prosthetic, and adjust the hood of his coat.

As he prepares to move on, he hears a rustle high up in a tree, followed by the snap of a stick behind him. Heart racing in his chest, he whirls around in alarm, squinting into the growing gloom. 

“Stupid,” he mutters after a minute. Turning back around he trips on a snow covered tussock, almost losing his feet. “Stupid.”

Another crack rings through the area, and a flock of birds takes off noisily, startling him. Panic floods him without warning. He can see Zayn some distance ahead: a lone figure in an expanse of white—a perfect target. 

He remembers Pippin, the female tribute from District 11 and the closest thing he had had to an ally in the arena, shot down—a sharp whistling sound and then a thud as the knife hit its target the only warning they were being hunted by a trio of tributes hiding high up among the rocks. Louis had never run so fast in his life, leaving Pippin behind without a second thought. Later he rationalised he had seen the knife embedded deep between her shoulderblades, near her spine—the cannons that announced her death had come minutes afterwards. But the shame remained. Nevermind he had been so fuelled by adrenaline he hadn’t even noticed the bleeding wound in his calf until he had stopped, what seemed like hours later. 

Now there were trees and an open space. And him and Zayn, out in the open. It was a common ruse in the Games, false smoke to create a distraction, to separate allies.

“Zayn!” he screams. “Zayn!” It’s not safe. It’s not safe. 

He thinks he can see, out of the corner of his eyes, something coming, and he ducks without thinking. Then staggers upright and starts to run after Zayn. He stumbles, once, twice—and falls. He expects to hit the ground, stone or grass under the snow. He isn’t expecting the drop as he falls over the edge and down the steep slope of the river bank. 

Louis scrabbles to grab hold of something—anything, but the grass is slick with frost, and snow crumbles under his hand, and he slides down fast. For a moment everything seems suspended—then he’s in the river. 

He thinks he cries out, but his voice gets cut off abruptly as the water closes over his head. It’s ice cold.

Louis breaks the surface, gasping. The current is strong, pulling at him, even bankside. He tries to grab onto a rock, a branch—to fight his way to shore, but he can’t hold onto anything and the weight of his clothes drags him down. He can’t get a grip, and he can’t pull himself out. 

Soon he can’t tell if he’s been in the water an hour or a minute, he’s so tired, his legs and arms wooden.

Louis doesn’t quite pass out, but his consciousness comes and goes in flashes as he is dragged out of the water. He comes to with Zayn dripping over him, crying. “You know I can't swim. You know that,” he sobs. “Fuck. _Fuck._ ”

Wanting to comfort and apologise, Louis tries to raise his arms, but they won’t quite work and his chest aches. The harsh coughing fit when he tries to speak makes his chest hurt and his throat burn. But he can breathe, after, and when he forces his eyes open again, the world is no longer spinning as much.

“What if I hadn’t looked back? What if—” Choking on fresh sobs, Zayn slumps over him, forehead pressed to his chest and groping listlessly at Louis, as though to make sure he is still there, still whole.

Louis can’t speak, but he manages to raise his arm to pat his back with weary, clumsy movements, prosthetic hand in a claw because his mechanical fingers are locked in place.

-

They make it back to the house, somehow. 

Zayn’s hands are still pink and swollen when he cradles the phone to his ear to call into town to find out the source of the smoke. There had been an explosion in one of the factories due to wool dust—nothing unusual, and nothing serious: no casualties, no major injuries. 

Zayn prepares him tea and a hot water bottle with his eyes downcast. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

Louis gives him a warning look. “Don’t do that. It was an accident, and I’m fine.” Everything hurts and he’s chilled down to the marrow of his bones, but he’s fine. “Better than fine: now I get you waiting on me hand and foot,” he jokes when Zayn brings over the steaming mug of tea. 

Zayn breathes out a short laugh. “So the usual.”

Later that night, Louis wakes up from an exhausted drowse to find Zayn still awake beside him on the bed. 

“I can see you staring at me,” he whispers, speech drawn out from sleep and tiredness. 

Zayn’s laughter is faint but genuine. “What else am I supposed to stare at? It’s you or the fireplace, and you’re blocking my view.”

Laughing seems to ease some of the cramped muscles in his chest and back, but the light hearted moment is short lived. “I thought I saw something, earlier—someone, maybe,” he confesses. 

“It was just the birds.”

Louis rolls onto his back with a slow exhalation, and stares at the ceiling. “What if it wasn’t?” He turns his head to look at Zayn fearfully. “There’s Capitol citizens in District 3. Here too. A couple got off the train with me. What if—”

Zayn shakes his head. “It’s not what you think.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I had some visitors, a couple of weeks back.” 

“From the Capitol?” 

“Yeah. They wanted to talk, they said.” There’s an ironic, bitter lilt to Zayn’s voice as he explains. There's a new market now, for luxuries and exclusive products and services for former Capitol citizens, as well as people from the districts who fancied a taste now that a new world had opened for them.

Louis can't wrap his head around it. “I… I don’t—”

“It's harmless, they say.” Zayn switches into a fake Capitol accent that should probably be funny but only makes Louis’ skin crawl. “Just a little fun, a little something to tide them over in these changing times.”

He raises himself on his elbow, the position awkward because he isn’t wearing his prosthesis. “What did they want with you?”

“Well, for a time I was a popular party... ornament? Can’t say I was ever very entertaining,” Zayn replies with a humorless laugh.

“What did you tell them?”

“To fuck off, what do you think?”

“They won't come after you, will they?” Louis asks, voice shaking.

Zayn makes a quiet noise of dissent. “It's not how it used to be,” he says at last. “It’s an invitation, an offer.” Not an order anymore, not a threat.

Louis lies back again, closes his eyes though he couldn’t be farther from sleep. He can feel Zayn staring again. “Sometimes I can’t believe we’re alive. It doesn’t make sense, you know. When so many parts of us are missing.”

“Damaged beyond repair,” Zayn agrees. 

Nobody likes to hear about it—the brokenness, the hollow feeling of having been emptied out. They’re not OK, and they’re never going to be. 

Zayn glances at his truncated arm, but they both know neither of them are talking about that. “There’s not enough life to fix this,” he whispers, as if reading his mind. 

“No.” Yet, Louis thinks of his little garden… of the kiss he shared with Mox. How he had fought against the river, not wanting to sink, not wanting to go. “But… we’re alive, more or less. There’s days it hurts less now.”

The look in Zayn’s eyes is the same he used to have when he came down from a high, lost and vulnerable. “I don’t think I can ever forget it,” he says. 

Louis can’t either—even less with the constant, tangible reminder in the edge of his vision. But maybe the memories will hurt less, less often, someday. Maybe they can be better, even if they can’t be OK. 

‘We’re here now, not there,’ is all he can think to say. Resting his forehead against Zayn’s he can feel his breath on his lips. “This is now.”

“You know I love you, right?” Zayn whispers. 

“I love you too.” He wonders if in other circumstances, in another life, he could have loved him like Zayn wanted to be loved. If they could have had something else—not more, but different. “Thank you for saving me.”

Zayn presses a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth. Right where Mox had kissed him. He gives Louis time—to turn his head, just an inch to the right, and bring them into a proper kiss. 

Louis doesn’t—he can’t. 

“I’ll always save you,” Zayn murmurs after a minute, drawing back.

Louis wants to apologise, but he knows Zayn doesn’t want that. 

They fall asleep in each other’s arms.

-

There is no one to blame but Oli for Mox knowing about the incident at the cabin before Louis can even think about telling him… or not. But he can’t quite bring himself to be mad—he had never indicated it was any kind of secret. And as usual, Oli is on the right track, because—if Louis is being honest with himself—Mox’s solicitious attention is not at all unwelcome.

Mox knowing also saves him from having to make up excuses about the lingering exhaustion and muscle soreness from the fall and the struggle in the water. 

“You’ll need to take it easy,” Mox determines after looking him up and down—straightforward and practical as ever—and immediately takes charge. He settles Louis in a chair on a patch of sunlight on the porch, wrapped up in a blanket and with a hot water bottle, then busies himself clearing the ice from the porch stairs and the concrete path that leads to the street.

“I only feel a little bad about letting you do all the work,” Louis teases when Mox straightens his back with a groan after a while.

Mox doubles over in sudden, unexpected laughter. “Only a little?” he replies, chuckling as he removes his gloves. 

“Just the tiniest bit,” Louis confirms, even as he has to press his lips together tight to hold back the smile threatening to escape. He can feel himself blushing—and he quickly ducks his head—when Mox gives him a long considering look over his hands, cupped in front of his mouth as he blows into his palms to warm them up. 

“Has anyone ever denied you anything, looking like that?” he says in a wondering tone that makes Louis raise his hands—fingers tucked in the palm of his prosthetic, knuckles pressed to his cheek—to hide his smile. Because he can’t help but smile, nervous and flattered. 

“Don’t be silly.” Louis keeps his hands against his chest while he raises his face to look up at Mox as he approaches him slowly—not hesitant but intent, self assured. 

“I’m from 13, we’re never silly,” he says, a smile playing about his lips. Stepping up close, he crouches in front of Louis. “We’re always perfectly serious.” 

Louis’ shoulders shake in a burst of giggles. A hand goes up to cover his mouth automatically, but it feels… good. Despite everything, the last few days he has felt lighter, like something had washed away in the river. “Yeah?” is all he can think to respond.

Mox breaks into a grin. “Mhm.” The corners of his lips are still upturned as he reaches for his Louis’ real hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles. 

Louis swallows thickly. “Kiss me…?” His voice goes high, between a question and a request. “Properly?” he whispers.

Keeping hold of his hand, Mox leans in and Louis’ eyelids flutter closed when their lips touch. For a few seconds they move against each other, gentle and sweet, exploratory rather than tentative. 

Louis finds himself smiling again when they break apart. 

“The sun's come out,” Mox says in a quiet, earnest voice, the moment he opens his eyes.

Louis’ eyebrows twitch in confusion, before understanding dawns on him. He shakes his head, face hot. “Best get back to work then.” he says, flapping his hands in a shooing gesture. 

But before he can move away, he tugs at Mox’s sleeve and rises up to kiss him again, quick and promising.

-

It doesn’t really change anything, except Louis is more aware of wanting—of being wanted, though that still feels precarious, bound to change at some point. Soon. When the good days pass—he’s never had so many in a row, but he knows it can’t last—and Mox realises. That it’s not worth it. That Louis isn’t worth it, isn’t enough.

He knows it will be harder the more attached he gets to Mox, to the false feeling that he’s alright—the more he lets himself believe he gets to keep any of this. But he can’t stop. 

He’s always been weak. 

-

Louis wakes up to snow one morning: a thin blanket over the usual frost—it hasn’t been snowing for long. When he opens his bedroom window, large, heavy snowflakes drift inside. It’s a proper snowstorm, but he can tell it will settle only for a few hours and then melt. 

Given it will be hours before it clears, Louis prepares himself for a slow morning. He doesn’t bother getting dressed, wanders downstairs in the loose pyjama bottoms and oversized sweatshirt he sleeps in during the winter. 

He stops to admire the fresh flowers adorning the hallway table: an order shipped in from the greenhouses in the Capitol—too expensive, inexcusable, really. But Louis is glad in that moment as he ghosts a hand over the riot of yellow and orange lilies, giving himself a moment. Mox coming over every other day has become something of a routine, and the unforseen break is throwing him off. 

The knock on the door makes his heart jump to his throat. No one comes to his house uninvited, unexpected. Except he recognises that knock, he realises, as it rings through the house again. It hadn’t registered until that moment how distinctive it is. Louis wonders if it’s deliberate or just habit. Either way it makes him feel safe—he won’t be caught unawares. 

“I didn’t think you were coming.” He opens the door only enough to let Mox slip inside—along with a flurry of snow and a blast of cold. “It’s snowing.”

“I noticed.” Mox chuckles. “I wanted to go out. Experience it first hand.”

Remembering what Mox had told him about the limited time outside in District 13, Louis nods in understanding. But still can’t resist teasing: “Enjoyed your walk?”

Shrugging off his jacket, speckled with rapidly melting snow, Mox laughs. “I did, actually.” He leans over to peck Louis on the mouth, pressing a paper bag into his hands in the process. 

Bemused, Louis peers into the bag to discover an assortment of pastries. For a moment his mind goes to Meganne, the flirtatious baker’s daughter. What if he’s realised she can give him things he can’t? How much easier it would be with her? But… he’s still here now, with Louis, he reminds himself. For now, he’s here. 

“Did they keep you warm, or did you keep them warm?” he asks, gratified when it makes Mox grin. 

“Bit of both.”

Then he moves forward, towards the kitchen table and Louis immediately notices that he’s limping slightly. Panic stabs through him.

“What happened? What’s wrong?”

“I slipped on a bit of ice and my ankle’s a bit sore. That’s all, sweetheart,” Mox replies calmly as he starts pulling up a chair.

Louis hesitates for a second, then taps him on the arm. “Why don’t we… sit in the living room. It’s probably more comfortable.”

Surprise ripples across Mox’s face for a split second, before he nods with a small smile. “That sounds nice.”

He won’t let Louis help him down the hall, however: “I weigh several stones more than you, sweetheart, and I can walk just fine,” he insists. But he makes a point of falling back onto the couch when Louis gives him a light push. His playful groan turns into a cough, as the couch expels a small cloud of dust. “How long has it been since you came in here?” he asks, his tone amused but his expression revealing concern.

Louis shrugs, biting the inside of his cheek. “It’s been a while… When they aired the execution, probably?”

“Oh.” 

It’s been over eighteen months since the Second Rebellion, since the execution of President Cowell and Coin, he counts. That means little to him, however—he has no real sense of time. There are so many events in Louis’ life that at times feel as distant as another life, and other times as though no time had passed at all.

He has hardly stepped into the living room since the first year, as he has too many memories of sitting there as a victor, showing off his talent: half reading, half singing words that spilled out of him every night after the Games. 

Standing in the living room now is like being transported back, to the preparations for his Victory Tour. 

He remembers the producers shaking their head, no, there was no way they could air that—before he had even finished reading out what he had written. Not quite poems, not quite prose. For months after the Games the words had poured out of him, unstoppable, both draining and reinvigorated. He had written not just about the Games, but about life in District 3, swimming in technology yet impoverished and grim.

They had scrambled to find him another talent. Louis supposes word might have got back to President Cowell, because the irony and cruelty of the choice was exactly his style. The talent chosen for him was calligraphy. 

It had been a painful punishment, making him write nonsense instead, in an elaborate handwriting that was so alien to him, and difficult as he was still getting used to his prosthetic. In the end it had seemed mild, however… when they reached the Capitol and he was presented with twelve brand new Avoxes—slaves mutilated into muteness—one taken fresh from each of his visits. A clear message: you shut up or we shut you up. 

Louis hasn't written for a long time. The words were there—sometimes he whispered them in the bath until his throat was hoarse. But he can't write.

Centered about the television screen that every home in Panem was forced to have, the living room was nothing more than the room to watch the Games before he became a mentor, and afterwards to sit through the recaps during the rest of the year, or the announcements from the Capitol.

The television screen is now covered with a sheet. 

“What are they showing on it now?” he asks in a small voice.

“News. Reports on the rebuilding efforts going on in each district, developments in the Republic’s administration… that kind of thing. But they’re thinking of adding some entertainment soon.”

A strangled laugh escapes Louis at that. 

Mox eyes him warily. “Nothing like the Games.”

Louis nods, squeezing the tip of his mechanical pinkie, but not starting the turns. “It’s a good thing, actually. That’s… the whole point, isn’t it?” He releases his breath in a long, measured exhale. “We’re not surviving anymore,” he intones, echoing Mox’s words from their first meeting.

“We’re living,” Mox agrees, stretching his hand out in invitation. Louis takes it and steps forward—up to Mox’s knees, the memory of the incident in the kitchen coming to mind all of a sudden. But this time Mox pulls him closer, fits him between his legs. “Well, here we are in the _living_ room.”

Shaking his head, Louis lets out a short laugh in spite of himself. Maybe if they dust the place and move the furniture around a little, they can sit here more often. “I’m only letting that slide because you brought pastries.” 

Mox chuckles. “That’s fair.” 

His lips curve without conscious thought in response, and, his chest warm with a surge of affection, he leans in to kiss him.

Mox’s hands find his hips; he fits a palm to the curve of his waist, causing his sweatshirt to bunch up. Even though it was Louis who had initiated, Mox quickly takes control of the kiss, and Louis breathes an almost inaudible whimper into his mouth. 

The morning is definitely not going how Louis thought it would. 

After a minute, Mox draws back, though he keeps his hands on Louis’ body. “So how about that breakfast? he says, voice somewhat rough.

Louis stares at him for a moment, his lips still feeling the pressure and warmth of Mox’s. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no, Louis—” Mox grasps at his hand to press a kiss to his palm. “I just… know my limits.” Despite the soft gesture, the heat in his eyes is still plain to see, causing Louis to flush.

-

Since the Second Rebellion the calendar has changed. 

The whole of Panem used to schedule the year around the Hunger Games: from Reaping to Crowning to Victory Tour—then repeat. There were no fixed dates, as the duration of the Games was unpredictable, but the variation was a matter of a few weeks at most. So that the Reaping invariably took place as winter readied to change into spring: a time of birth and renewal… marked by the promise of death with the selection of tributes.

There is a new calendar now with different commemorative dates—around the time of the Reaping there is now a day of remembrance for all the fallen tributes, near to a thousand children in 75 Hunger Games.

Louis wonders how he and the other Victors fit into it all. They had gone through the same experience, but survived—to live a life of luxury. Technically. Yet hadn’t every one of them died in the arena too, in their own way? And no amount of money could ever bring them back. Still, it seems selfish to feel… left out. Selfish to mourn for themselves, or to lament and despair, caught up in memories.

For weeks Louis pushes back the gloom as it threatens to creep up on him. But it seemed inevitable that it should catch up with him. The end of the good days, as he feared. He still didn’t expect to crash so hard. 

It gets harder to sleep as the anniversary of his own Reaping approaches. His nights are filled with the memories of blistering flesh, and severed limbs, and aching, inescapable hunger and thirst. Horror and fear, the certain knowledge of danger right around the corner, wake him up and keep him awake.

He watches the morning arrive, curled up in the window seat in his bedroom. It’s a pleasant, unremarkable day—a faint hint of spring in the air when he opens the window. 

Despite full awareness of the time, the knock on the door still comes as a surprise. For a few seconds he considers ignoring it and hiding out like he did after his freak out with the worm. But in the end—selfish, always so selfish—desperate for comfort, he lets Mox into the house. Trembling, spaced out, he opens the door for him. 

Mox’s smile vanishes the moment his eyes fall on him. He keeps a grounding hand on his arm as he guides Louis to a chair, as though he’s worried he might collapse. His mouth is moving, but the words aren’t registering in Louis’ mind.

Right after the Games, all his senses had been turned on too high: every sound, every light, too intense, overwhelming. He had spent hours in bed, the first weeks after his return, while his sisters were in school. With time it became the opposite. Really bad days were muted, like the world couldn’t reach him, like he wasn’t a part of it, like he was completely alone. 

“Louis, sweetheart.” Kneeling in front of him, Mox cups his face in one hand, the other at his wrist. His grip tightens minutely when Louis’ eyes flick to him. 

His expression is grave and concerned, and Louis needs to… fix that. “I’m fine,” he says, automatically. “I’ve got—I’ve got to be.”

He can have a breakdown, but never break down. He has responsibilities… He has to be… strong. He also doesn’t know if he could put himself back together if he did break. 

“You're not a mentor anymore. Not the eldest brother right now,” Mox says softly. “It’s OK to let go. Let me take care of you.”

His throat tight, Louis meets Mox’s eyes. “That's not part of your job description.” 

“I know.”

“So why would you want to?” It’s Louis’ job to take care of people. He has no one to take care of him but himself, and that’s OK. How could it be any other way?

Sighing, Mox thumbs at his cheek. “Just because.” 

“That's not an answer,” Louis argues weakly. 

Mox bends over to rest his forehead on their clasped hands for a minute, before straightening, as if with renewed determination. “I’ll be a moment, I’m gonna run you a bath, then make you tea and something to eat.”

But when he tries to get up. Louis can’t help cling to him, a small sound of distress escaping him. He doesn’t want to be alone.

“Alright. I won’t leave you. Let me just—” Mox takes off his jacket, leaving it bunched up on another chair instead of hanging it up like always. With no hesitation he takes Louis’ hand again, and leads him up to the bathroom upstairs, sits him down while he prepares the bath. 

Louis watches him move around: sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he rinses out the bathtub before letting it begin to fill with hot water. 

There are bath salts and oils his prep team had left behind years ago—concotions that turn the bathwater into a painting with a scent like exotic fruits—but the last thing Louis wants right now is to be reminded of the Capitol and their peculiar rituals and luxuries, paid in their blood.

Mox lowers himself to a crouch in front of Louis, forehead lined as he looks him over. “It’ll be a few minutes,” he informs him in a quiet, careful voice. Resting a hand on his knee, he gives a comforting squeeze. “I was thinking maybe you would like to put on some music?”

“Mm.” It might help clear the static from Louis’ mind. 

“I’m going to need to leave the bathroom—I won’t be a minute, I promise. Is that OK?”

Louis nods, his gaze on Mox’s thumb, seemingly unconsciously rubbing soothing circles on his knee. He looks up to meet his eyes. “You can go. You don’t have… to do any of this.”

Mox gives his knee another squeeze. “I want to,” he says simply, before getting to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”

For a moment the walls seem to close in around him, pressure building in his chest, before he regains control of himself. As he stands up, pulling at the long sleeved shirt he had worn to bed, it hits him he is going to have to take off his prosthetic in front of Mox. 

He twists the artificial little finger around, counting to twelve, eyes squeezed shut. Mox is going to see all his broken pieces at once, and Louis feels like he might throw up. 

“I’m here.” 

Louis’ eyes snap open, as Mox appears at the door. Besides the music player chip he has a small bowl with wilted flower petals he must have scooped up from the hall table, where they had been piling up for days as Louis couldn’t bring himself to clean. 

“OK?” Mox asks as he walks over to turn off the faucet. 

“Mhm.” 

Once he’s sprinkled the flower petals into the steaming bath water, Mox turns back to him. “Ready?”

With a deep breath Louis nods, and pulls his shirt over his head. With brusque, precise movements, keeping his face averted, he removes his prosthetic arm. 

He catches sight of himself in the steamed up mirror: a blurred figure, trembling in place, completely exposed as he holds his prosthesis in his one hand. Louis startles when Mox touches him—a steadying hand on his upper arm. 

“Where should I put it?” he asks, gentle but casual, holding out his hand for Louis to hand him the prosthetic. 

“Bedroom,” he answers after a few seconds, breaking out of his stupor. He needs to dry himself well before he can put it back on anyway.

While Mox is gone, he shimmies out of his pants and climbs into the bath. The water is hot, but it feels good. Taking a deep breath, Louis lets himself sink under the water. He remembers how his skin had dried in the arena, pinching and prickling, his lips and eyes burning from dehydration. 

“Nymphaea.” The word reaches him distorted, from a distance. Mox. Louis has never had someone next to him before in times like these—anchoring him, pulling him back to the present and away from the memories, keeping him from drowning in all the pain.

Mox’s face shows relief when he surfaces, and his lips twitch in a wan smile as he smooths Louis’ wet hair back, out of his face.

For half an hour Louis sits in the bath, while Mox perches on the edge of the bathtub, faint music in the background. Although they don’t speak, their attention is on each other: fingers brushing in the water; Mox peeling flower petals that cling to his skin; Louis clumsily using his left hand to roll back Mox’s sleeve when it starts slipping. 

It catches up with him in the end, however. Nothing precipitates it, like a glass of water filled until it overflows: one minute he is… fine, and the next he is drawing his knees up to his chest, folding in on himself… crying.

Mox strokes his hair, making soothing sounds against his own whimpering. And Louis craves the comfort, but in these moments his mind, his body, work against him, and he shies from the touch instead, tries to make himself smaller in shame.

“No, no, come on, Louis.” Gentle but firm, Mox pulls him up to his feet and out of the tub. Wrapping him up in a towel, he holds him.

Shaking from more than the cold, Louis buries his face in Mox’s chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m—” A mess, fucked up. Broken. 

Mox shushes him softly. “It’s just a bad day, sweetheart. I’ll pass. I promise, it’ll pass.”

Louis shakes his head, whimpering. “Until the next one.”

He catches the hitch in Mox’s breathing, and the pause before his answer. Yet there is no hint of doubt in his voice: “OK. But that one will pass too. And the one after that. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but… it does get better.” 

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Louis nods into his shoulder. Though Mox’s conviction is still weak against his own experience: that everything falls apart, eventually—over and over again. And he wonders for how long he can keep putting the pieces back together. 

“Come on,” Mox says after a minute, giving his upper arms a gentle rub over the towel. “You’re getting cold, and the whole point was to get you comfortable.” 

He moves them to the bedroom, where, exhausted and drained, Louis collapses onto the bed, naked and without bothering with his prosthetic. Strangely, he thinks he might be able to sleep now.

Although Mox tugs at a corner of the bed covers, murmuring about getting him warm, Louis doesn’t shift. His right upper arm lifts before he remembers, and grabs onto Mox’s wrist with his left hand instead. “When are you going to fuck me?” he asks, mumbling. 

Mox raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t look surprised. “When you want it, Louis.”

“I want it,” he replies automatically. He wants to give Mox something. He knows Mox wants it—so why won’t he just take what he wants?

“There's no hurry,” Mox says. 

Louis doesn’t quite believe him, but he’s too tired to insist—and too tired to make it any good for him, if Mox were to give in, anyway. “You said you were going to make me tea. What happened to it?” he says after a minute, gratified when it makes Mox grin.

“That’s right, I did.” He rises to his feet. “You want it?” It’s teasing, and despite himself Louis breathes out a laugh. 

“Yes. No sugar, splash of milk.” 

“I know,” Mox replies, laughter in his voice. Before he leaves the room, he sets a fresh set of sleeping clothes next to him.

For a couple of minutes Louis doesn’t move. The world feels present again: he can hear Mox’s footsteps and then his rummaging in the cupboards downstairs; a bird right outside his window. He doesn’t feel alone. After dressing himself, he slips under the covers, thinking of closing his eyes for just a minute while he waits for Mox. He’s asleep the moment his eyes close. 

Mox makes him a fresh cup when he wakes up, a few hours later, and Louis beckons him to the bed. 

“I don’t want to get your sheets dirty.” 

“After you went to all the trouble of changing them?”

He laughs. “Yes.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Come here, please.” Some of the darkness has lifted from his mind—faster, easier than usual. It’s still lurking, right beneath the surface, but he’s not drowning in it.

Mox still dusts himself off a bit before joining him, sitting up against the headboard, over the covers. 

“Not that bad then, hm?” he says, watching Louis drain the last of his tea, before fitting himself under Mox’s arm.

“Decent.” 

“Just decent?” he says with a chuckle.

Lips pressed tight to hold back a smile, Louis nods. Then adds, seriously: “But thank you.” He means for more than the tea and lunch, and it’s clear Mox gets the message. The expression on his face tender as he brushes the hair from his forehead, and thumbs at his cheek, his eyes roving over Louis’ face. 

“Anytime,” he says finally. And Louis thinks he might mean more than tea and lunch too.


	4. Chapter 4

As spring arrives, there is more work to be done outside, the first planting of bulbs and sprinkling of seeds that can withstand the last, sporadic frosts. Mox also has work throughout the district, which Louis hears about but doesn’t see until Mox convinces him to walk into town one evening. 

Louis doesn’t venture out of the Victor’s Village all that often: he has his groceries delivered, and no one to visit except Oli, so that when he does go out, it’s straight to his house or office.   
It’s somewhat daunting heading out without a clear destination.

Figuring out at once that he needs to take the lead, Mox does so without fuss, taking Louis, who walks half a step behind him, by the hand. Doesn’t let go even when people stop him to say hello, though some of them stare. In fact he tightens his grip, sensing Louis’ nerves.

In any case, these don’t stop Louis from appreciating the landscaping work Mox has been directing in the last months. 

The saplings planted in the fall are still bare, but their aliveness still stands out against the old concrete and metal. There are bushes and hedges that weren’t there before too, and little clumps of seasonal flowers in strategic locations, which amazes Louis most of all.

“It looks good,” he tells Mox, genuinely impressed. “Really good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s… new life.” New life after decades of Capitol oppression, of being reduced to nothing but what they could produce for others to profit and enjoy.

“There’s still a lot to do. This is just the beginning,” Mox says, looking around, thoughtful and determined. Tall and handsome and capable.

“You did good.” Louis can’t imagine Mox will stay to see it through—he’s done his part. It makes sense that he should move on soon. Pushing back the ache in his chest, he asks as they continue their stroll: “Have you heard from 5 yet?”

Undergoing a similar greening project, District 5 had called him for a remote consultation a few weeks previous, but Mox going over in person was under discussion.

“Still waiting,” Mox answers. 

Waiting for the right offer, a good reason, to leave—is what Louis hears. It can’t be long in coming. 

Distracted despite his attempts at maintaining a semblance of cheeriness, Louis doesn’t notice where Mox is leading them until they get there: Oli’s house. 

He falters, standing back as Mox knocks on the door. It seems purposeful, as Mox is aware of how much of a comfort Oli is for him, and he wonders if he hadn’t hidden his mood as well as he had thought. 

Mox’s small, encouraging smile as he holds the door open for him confirms it.

Louis doesn’t get the chance to feel bad about it, as Oli pulls him inside with an arm looped around his neck, and drags him over to the living room to meet his cousin’s new baby. 

Louis’ eyes widen in delight, though he approaches timidly. Despite his closeness to Oli, Hi-fina doesn’t know him, and has no idea how embarrassingly clucky he has always been. But to his surprise, she hands the child over to him immediately. “You can hold her,” she says as though she can’t understand his hesitation. 

“Right. Thank you.” Louis picks up the baby with the utmost care, cradles her in the crook of his prosthetic, so he can touch her face and feel it—the impossibly soft cheek and down of hair on her head, the warmth of her skin. 

The baby makes a soft cooing noise, blinking up at him, and tears spring to his eyes even as he smiles, breathing out a laugh that’s half a sob. 

Because the children born now won’t have to ever register as tributes, won’t have to stand in a pen every year waiting to see if they will be chosen to die in the Hunger Games; or see their friends, or brothers and sisters, or cousins go—and kill and die. 

Oli comes over to stand at his side and rubs his shoulder. 

Mox doesn’t ask why he’s crying either, simply takes him in his arms once he gives the baby back to its mother, and holds him close, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. 

“Do you want children?” he asks later, outside. 

Louis gives him a look. “It’d be a bit difficult, don’t you think?” He spreads a hand on his flat stomach with a wry smile. “And I’m not… doing it the other way.” He flaps his hands and scrunches up his nose at the thought, which makes Mox chuckle. 

“There are other ways… the war has left plenty of orphans…?” he says. 

Louis twists his lips in a pained attempt at a smile. “I need to figure out how to take care of myself first. It’s difficult to be much of a parent when I’m having a breakdown every other week.” The weak smile doesn’t hold, as he continues: “And, you know, I’ve had kids already, really. Eight of them. They’re buried on that hill over there.” He points in the direction of the district’s main burial ground, his hand shaking. “With their siblings.” 

Mox’s stricken expression makes Louis wince.

“Sorry.”

“What. No. I’m sorry, Louis. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t a rude question. And you’re right. There are kids who need a home. I just want to make sure I can give them a good one.” He shrugs with forced nonchalance. “Maybe some day.”

Mox stares at him for a long moment, face somber, before he seems to shake himself. “I feel like you need a treat.” 

Louis raises his eyebrows. “I treat myself all the time.”

“You really don’t,” Mox says ruefully. “But either way, I want to treat you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

Treating him turns out to mean buying him chocolate, which used to be a luxury—if not completely unknown—in all of Panem except for the wealthiest Districts 1 and 2 and the Capitol. 

In the last year, however, some of the exclusive products of the rich Capitol citizens have started to become available. Louis hadn’t been aware that a miniscule confectionary shop had opened in District 3 until that moment. But their sweets and chocolates are delicious—better than any he has had before, perhaps because he only ever had it as a tribute and a mentor: on the brink of his own death, or that of others. 

-

Somehow, it becomes part of their routine in the next weeks, going out for a walk and finishing at the confectionary. Or—when Louis figures out Mox’s preference is for pastries—occasionally the bakery. 

Meganne still flirts, but it seems more a matter of course than something with real intent. And despite his initial misgivings, she’s become familiar enough that when Kelvin steps into the store while Mox tarries outside answering a question for one of the new district gardeners, Louis almost asks for her help. He doesn’t even get the chance, however, as she chooses that moment to go in the back of the store. 

A sneer on his face, Kelvin walks up to him. Although he is about as tall as Mox, and smaller, he does take advantage of their difference in height and weight to intimate Louis, standing too close, crowding him against the display.“Out of your ivory tower, are you?” he says for a greeting. 

Louis turns his face away. “I go out.”

“Just not with me, is it?”

“I’m not looking for anything, Kelvin, I told you.”

Kelvin scoffs. “You seem pretty cosy with Bunker Boy.”

“Don't call him that,” he snaps.

“District 13… it’s all a project for them. They aren’t like us. This isn't their home, you know.”

“We are all different, and all the same. They took refugees in too. And this can be their home if they need it to be.” Louis tries to push past in disgust, but Kelvin stops him, pushing him back. 

“He doesn’t need it to be, though. He’s going to leave, Louis.”

Louis glares up at him. “Whether he's here or not won't change anything for you,” he says coldly.

Kelvin’s jaw tightens. “You think you have that many options?” Louis flinches when he reaches out to grip his chin. “You have a pretty face, but you're damaged goods. Mine is the best offer you’re going to get, _sweetheart_.”

“If I were for sale, you could never afford me.” Tears sting at his eyes. “And don’t call me that.” 

He’s surprised when Kelvin steps back without more fuss, but then he hears Mox call out: “Well, hello.” 

His back to the door, Louis hadn’t seen him come in. 

Kelvin steps around him to offer his hand with a smile. “Fancy seeing you here, Mox.”

“Fancied something sweet—” As he comes to stand beside him, Mox spreads a hand on the small of Louis’ back in a intimate gesture. “—to eat.”

Louis blushes, catching a glimpse of Kelvin’s face as he ducks his head: his unsmiling eyes fixed on Louis even as he simpers. 

“Well. You’ve got plenty of options,” Kelvin says in a way that makes it clear—to Louis—he’s referring to more than the pastries.

“Kelvin, I’ve got your order here,” Meganne calls out, coming out of the back room with a couple of boxes in her arms. 

“Is everything OK?” Mox asks as he walks Louis home. 

“Mhm.”

“You seem upset.”

Louis shakes his head. “I’m fine.” Kelvin shouldn’t have this kind of effect on him. His mix of contempt and desire was old news, and he hadn’t said anything Louis didn’t already know: that Mox will leave; that Louis isn’t enough to keep him here. Nonetheless, he is a little shook up. “Will you stay… for dinner?” he asks, not giving himself time to second guess himself. Peering up at Mox, he forces himself to look him in the eyes. Mox’s surprise is understandable—While they had been having breakfast together for months, and progressed on to lunch some weeks before, dinner feels like a statement. “I’d like that. If you want to…” he adds, his confidence waning. 

“Yes. Yes, of course I will. I want to,” Mox answers quickly. 

Despite his nerves, Louis raises himself up on tiptoe to give him a kiss, clutching at his jacket to keep his balance. 

There is a smile on both of their faces when they break apart. 

“If you want anything decent, though, you’ll need to cook yourself,” Louis deadpans.

Laughing, Mox thumbs at Louis’ wet lower lip, then leans down to kiss him again. “I’ve never cooked before… But I can give it a try,” he says with a grin.

It’s in that moment Louis realises he is very much in love with Mox. 

-

Dinner becomes a thing. 

While Louis is familiar enough with Capitol cuisine to know neither of them are extraordinary cooks, their attempts, especially considering their lack of experience and instruction, aren’t bad at all. Mox’s standards are low, as well, and Louis is more than content with plain fare, when all his memories of rare dishes is linked to the Games. There is one exception: dessert. Louis loves delicate and decadent desserts, especially if they involve chocolate. He’s probably the confectionary’s best customer.

Mox indulges him—although he likes his pastries, it’s clear he isn’t that fussed. 

After a couple of small bites, he sits back to watch Louis eat a piece of chocolate cake with a fond, amused smile. 

“Had you ever imagined food could taste like this?” Louis asks curiously. He remembers the first time being presented with Capitol food, still in a daze from the Reaping, stomach in knots as he sat in front of Seo. The food had been so different to anything they had in the district—and there was so much of it too. The greatest shock had been dessert. Louis had never had more than two or three bites of a muffin or a square of chocolate at a time. Years later it still throws him a little to be able to have a whole piece of chocolate cake before him on a plate. 

“Didn’t even cross my mind,” Mox answers. “Cooking and eating were supposed to be practical and efficient, no one was thinking much about taste.”

Louis can’t hold back a quiet moan at the next bite. “Where’s the pleasure in that?”

Mox’s eyes drop to his mouth, and Louis—perhaps emboldened by the sugar rush—lets himself linger a little with the spoon in his mouth. “Not much, to be fair,” Mox says distractedly after a beat. “At least neither of us have ever gone that hungry.”

“Right.” Memories of the raw, rotten armadillo meat in his mouth; the twisting, desperate pain in his stomach, assault him, in spite of himself. Mouth dry all of a sudden, he reaches for his cup with a trembling hand, almost knocking it over when he can’t get the grip with his prosthetic right. 

Mox falters. “Except… except when you were in the Games.”

Giving up on his tea, Louis attempts a reassuring smile. “It was a long time ago,” he says. “I’ve had plenty to eat since then. And some.”

Frowning, Mox shakes his head—and—for the first time—he stops Louis when he starts twisting his artificial finger around, interrupting the count at three. He threads their fingers together and holds on.

“You know I can’t feel it,” Louis tells him. He wasn’t hurting himself, really. 

“It’s not about what you can feel with your hand,” he answers. 

Louis doesn’t know if he means the pain or the comfort.

“It really hurt…” he finds himself saying—the poison, the infection… waking up alive but mutilated. “When I lost it.” 

He has never talked about before. Louis had clung to Zayn and sobbed, once, but he had never said that out loud, always played it down. It seemed so inconsequential when so many had died. His arm, and in its place the best myoelectric prosthesis—developed in District 3, actually—against so many lives. But it had hurt. 

Mox touches their knees together. “You’ve been through a lot.”

“Some people lost a lot more.” 

“That doesn’t mean what you lost doesn’t matter, that you can’t feel hurt.” He speaks slowly, thoughtfully. “Or that the hurt you feel doesn’t matter.”

A lump in his throat, Louis doesn’t know what to say. ‘Thank you,’ is all he can settle on, finally. Brushing away a stray tear from his cheek, he goes back to his cake. 

-

Nearing summer Mox gets asked to visit District 5 at last. It doesn’t come as a surprise—neither does Mox asking him to come with him for the week. Louis had been debating what he would do long before the trip was confirmed, and come to the conclusion that he couldn’t go.

“No one is going to remember,” Mox argues, when Louis explains his reasons. “No one is going to blame you.”

“It still feels wrong. To go there… on vacation, when he’s dead because of me.” His kill had been the tribute from District 5, and the Victory Tour had been tough enough, looking into the faces of his family and friends and neighbors, after what he had done. 

“Because of the Games. You did what you had to do.”

Louis stops himself from twisting his mechanical finger around, and taps the count out instead on the table top—in between each tap he can feel the extra click from the loose joint.

“Mox, you don’t understand. You can’t.” No matter how true, he regrets the words the moment they leave his mouth, expecting Mox to get mad—but he only reaches for Louis’ real hand and laces their fingers together. 

“I know. I know I can’t, really. But I know, what you did, you did to survive. None of you killed for sport, not even the Careers, when it comes down to it.”

Wordless, Louis shakes his head. All he can say, after a minute is: “I still don’t want to go.”

“That’s OK, sweetheart.” Mox lifts his hand to his mouth, presses a kiss to the back of his hand. “I won’t be gone long anyway.”

-

Louis is determined not to mope around while Mox is gone. 

He meets up with Oli. Does some gardening on his own, though he has found out he isn’t much of a fan of toiling in the dirt in the warm weather. Calls Zayn and Seo and his sisters. He even ventures to town for some of his shopping rather than having it delivered as usual. 

It still gives him something of a jolt to see visitors in the district, or new neighbors, as some have begun to take permanent residence. 

Capitol citizens are especially jarring—and all too easy to make out, even with their reduced trappings, by their manner and their speech. Those that catch sight of him stare at him as he passes.

“Louis!” One of them calls when he’s several feet ahead, his back to them. He doesn’t turn around, but hurries on, heart racing. He ends up hiding out in Oli's office until it gets dark.

Oli walks him home. “Want me to stay?” he asks when they reach the house.

Rubbing at his nose in embarrassment, Louis shakes his head. “I’m fine. I just… got spooked.” A part of him still feels like they are out scouting the terrain, figuring out how to regain power. “It’s stupid.”

Oli pulls him into a hug. “I hate it too, to be honest. They’re just here to ogle at us, none of them have any useful skills.”

Louis releases his breath in a short laugh. “I’m sure they’re not _all_ completely useless.”

Oli’s face and skeptical snort draw another laugh out of Louis.

He has a bad nightmare that night: hands that pinch and tug at him, and thousands of staring eyes and cameras behind blinding lights. But it passes—a bad night, not even a bad day. It passes.

-

Then the next week a man from the Capitol shows up at his door: an old man with white hair and steel etched into his skin.

The door bell rings through the house, waking him up. He hadn’t heard the chime since his Victory Tour preparations, and it sets his heart racing in his chest. Louis hadn’t even been sure if the doorbell was still functioning. Bile burning in the back of his throat, Louis makes his way downstairs, legs wooden. 

Feeling exposed, especially without his prosthetic, he tugs the silken house robe Zayn had sent him closer around himself. It was a tradition of theirs to send each other gifts on the anniversary of their respective final day in the Games as a distraction technique. It was always a bad day—sometimes a terrible day—but this year it had coincided with the first blooms of his dahlias, and Mox had brought him chocolates, and it hadn’t been… that bad. 

He opens the door as little as possible, and stands half hidden behind it, and one bare foot on top of the other. Louis doesn’t like strangers in his home, with no warning. Nonetheless, forcing himself to be polite, he asks, his voice shaking in spite of himself: “Good morning, can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Mox. I was told I could find him here.”

The sudden tightness in his chest steals his breath. He knows in that moment that the Capitol are going to take Mox away for themselves, like they had taken Seo. Mox had been asked to consult in District 12 too, and to continue on in District 5. Obviously his work had caught people’s attention. He was a fine product for the new market for luxury and exclusivity that Zayn had told him about. There were still mansions in the Capitol, after all, and most of all, people eager to possess, after what they had lost. 

And while the old order is over and Mox a free citizen—which means they can’t force him—there is no doubt they have more than enough means to convince him and lure him away. They have so much more to offer than Louis.

“He’s sleeping right now,” Louis replies, without thinking. 

The old man looks him up and down, raising an eyebrow. Given Louis’ sleep rumpled appearance, it’s not a leap for him to assume they were in bed together.   
He wasn’t wrong either. It was a recent development—had happened maybe three or four times—Mox spending the night after dinner instead of going back to his place. The first night Louis had lain awake in Mox’s arms for hours before he finally drifted off. But he had slept well the last time and the night before, as well. It was starting to feel easy—though Louis should have known not to let it. 

“I see.” 

Louis clears his throat. “Can I get a message for him?” he asks numbly.

“No need. I’ll be back.” The man shoots him a quick grin. “I’ll find him.”

Louis waits until he’s out of sight before closing the door. 

His breath comes in sharp, frantic gasps as he trips up the stairs to back to his bedroom. Mox is still asleep, he hasn’t moved, except to throw his arm over the space where Louis has been. Trembling, Louis crawls into bed, under his arm.

Seemingly on instinct, Mox pulls him closer, yawning. “’s wrong?”

Louis makes himself small, shaking his head jerkily. He can’t speak. 

“Hey, ’s alright. It’s alright.” The sleepiness disappears quickly from Mox’s voice. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

Louis doesn’t want him to go. He should never have got attached, when he should have known this would happen. Still, he presses closer to him—and notices Mox's half hard. Louis has ignored his morning erections up till now, as he is used to ignoring his own more infrequent ones for the most part—a biological reaction disassociated from real arousal. But maybe it has been a mistake. Maybe if he gives Mox something more… He’s been so patient, but Louis knows he wants him. 

He completely forgets in that moment how Mox has never asked for more; had not let him give what he wasn’t ready to give. 

Louis works his hand between them, and palms him, a little clumsily. He hasn’t done this to someone else in years, and he’s a little off balance without his prosthetic arm. 

“Louis, what are you doing?” Mox grips his wrist loosely to stop him.

“Let me,” Louis says, desperately. No match for Mox’s strength, even though he is obviously being careful with him, he slips out of the loose hold to roll onto his side, his arse to Mox’s crotch instead. “Fuck me, please.”

He isn’t even hard.

“Louis—”

“Just—” He scrambles to get the small bottle of lube from the bedside drawer, but the can’t get back in position as Mox has sat up by the time he turns around. 

“Louis. Stop, please, sweetheart.” 

Louis stares at Mox for a long moment: bare chested, sheets pooled in his lap. It hits him hard then, how incongruous it is that he should have this caring, handsome man in his bed—in his life. His eyes fill with tears that quickly spill over. “Why won’t you—” he cries.

“You’re upset,” Mox says, with his usual calm, though his forehead is pinched with worry and the corners of his lips turned down. 

“Yes. That’s why I need you,” Louis whimpers. 

But Mox only shakes his head, easily taking the bottle from his hand and throwing it aside. “Not like this.”

Hiccuping sobs shake Louis’ whole body. 

He couldn’t give Zayn what he wanted back then, and now Mox won’t take it. He had lost Zayn, and now he’s going to lose Mox too. Louis can’t compete with the Capitol, or with all the unbroken things out there that can tempt him to leave. 

With a sigh, Mox gathers him into his arms, and strokes his hair until Louis calms down.

Eventually, he gets the story out of him: the man at the door, the ominous words. Mox’s reaction is unexpected: he shows no interest and no concern.

“Is that what scared you?” he says softly. 

“You make me sound like a child scared of the boogie man,” Louis complains—he can’t explain, and would never try to guilt him into staying either. No longer able to coerce, he is sure the Capitol must be generous in what they offer, and Louis would never want to keep Mox from good things. 

“No, Nymphaea, you’ve had reasons to be scared for a long time.” Mox brings Louis’ hand to his mouth to kiss his knuckles, then holds it to his face. “It was rude of him to come here, but it’s nothing sinister, Louis. They just want to talk. They’re insistent, though, I’ll give them that.”

“They won’t take no for an answer,” Louis whispers, his voice shot from crying. Despite all his rationalization, for a second his conviction that they can do no more than buy people into service, crumbles. What if they run out of patience and hurt Mox? 

“It’s not like that anymore, sweetheart. It’s only business.”

So it _is_ a matter of price. Mox is only waiting for the right offer to come along. Louis has known all along, it was temporary, but it still hurts. Despondent, he strokes Mox’s face for a long minute, tracing his features with his fingers and his eyes. He wishes he could feel him with both hands. 


	5. Chapter 5

Louis doesn’t—can’t forget. It hangs over him, the knowledge that the Capitol is after Mox. But after a week he reins in his clinginess, and tries to go back to normal… for however long it should last. 

It comes as no surprise when District 6 sends in a request for Mox to consult on their greening project for the district. What _is_ unexpected is how Mox agrees to go over in person right away. This time around he also doesn’t ask Louis if he wants to go with him. And no matter how much Louis reminds himself he has no right to expect an invitation—and he doesn’t even know if he would have agreed to go or not—it still hurts. 

“Maybe it’s for the best, Louis,” Zayn tells him. “District 6 was heavily bombed… You don’t need to see that.”

“I can handle it.” Part of District 3 had been bombed too during the war, and Louis had gone down to help—nothing more than distributing supplies and clearing out debris. He had had no trouble keeping it together then. It had left him shaken for days, afterwards, however. Memories of the arena overlapping with the recent imprint of the sounds and smells from the bombing. 

Zayn is aware of this, but he only hums noncommittally. “I’m surprised they are even at the stage to be thinking of landscaping, to be honest. The last reports said they were still in basic rebuilding.”

“Maybe they want to get a head start?” Louis says without conviction.

Doubt continues to gnaw at him, even though he tries not to overthink it. Is Mox lying to him? In the end, he can’t bring himself to ask. 

Louis sees him off at the train station. 

An ache in his chest, he holds on tight when Mox embraces him, his warmth and scent grounding—reassuring—in spite of everything. But the moment is cut too short, Mox all of a sudden lifting him off his feet and spinning them in place, obviously trying to make Louis laugh. 

Louis tries to play along, but a whimper escapes him instead as the world blurs for a second. 

Mox quickly sets him down, keeping a steadying grip on his arms. His eyes search Louis’ face worriedly. “Sweetheart—” 

“I’m fine. Sorry, it just… made me dizzy, for some reason.”

The lines on Mox’s forehead don’t smooth out even after Louis musters a wan smile. “It’s a quick trip,” he says. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Louis nods, groping for his hand and holding on tight again. For some reason he doesn’t want to get go. 

“Louis—” 

But the next moment the train is beeping to signal it’s about to leave, and Mox has to board. As he leans in to press a last kiss to the corner of his mouth, Louis angles his head to turn it into a proper kiss, albeit a brief one. 

“I’ll miss you,” he confesses.

Mox’s response is drowned out by the whistle that rings through the platform. And then Mox is gone. 

-

The trip is scheduled to be three days, and two nights. 

Louis uses the extra free time to gather all the fallen flower petals and wilting flowers he can find in the house and the garden and drying them; as well as giving some flower pots a new coat of paint. It leaves his real hand stained yellow.

On the third day he prepares dinner in advance of Mox’s arrival. Nothing too elaborate, but a fancier version of a dish he knows Mox loves. He leaves himself ample time to fuss with his hair, and calm his nerves with a spot of music. But his anxiety only gets worse as the minutes, the hours, pass without the knock on the door. Evening comes and goes—and Mox does not come. 

Maybe the train had been delayed, and he had decided to go straight to his place instead. Louis ignores the hurt that he wouldn’t rather come to him—it wasn’t as though he hadn’t spent the night before. But perhaps he was tired, or thinking Louis had gone to bed, hadn’t wanted to bother him. That seemed like something Mox would do. 

Then there was the fact only houses in the Victor’s Village had telephones, so there was no way for him to call. 

Despite repeating this to himself, it’s hard for him to fall asleep.

In the morning, Louis decides to surprise him, rather than wait for him to come over. The wait is killing him. Butterflies in his stomach, he hurries over in the early morning, the air crisp and fragrant with the new green in the district. But when he reaches Mox’s house, no one answers the door. The shutters are shut and everything is silent. Thinking he might be asleep, he hesitates before knocking.

His hands feel clammy as he knocks again, daring to rap his knuckles a little harder, when his first timid knock goes unanswered. 

“He’s gone.” A whine of unoiled hinges draws his attention next door, where Kelvin leans against the door jamb, watching Louis with a smirk on his face.

“What?”

“Yep.” Kelvin shrugs with studied indifference. “He’d been thinking about leaving for a while now, and he finally did.”

His mind blank, Louis stares at him. 

“You know how it is…” Kelvin continues in the same blasé tone. “Too much work, not enough payoff.” The shameless leer he gives Louis makes it clear what he is actually talking about. 

“He… he didn’t say anything.” Louis feels weirdly disconnected from his body—from the situation. Everything feels far too present for this to be a nightmare, but it still feels like one. Anticipating losing Mox had not prepared him for this moment. And he had never thought he would leave without any warning.

“Probably thought it would be easier for you, without a goodbye. Clean break, you know,” Kelvin says with mock sympathy in his voice.

“Mm. Probably.” Louis turns around, in a daze, and starts walking away. 

“Hey, Louis!”

He turns around automatically—the flash of hope in his chest physically painful.

“Did you really think he would choose to stay with you when he can do anything else?” Kelvin jeers.

Despite the warmth of the sun Louis feels chilled to the bone. “No, I guess not.” 

“Anyone who has any other options isn’t going to want you. Except me.” Kelvin grins—lecherous, mean—and shifts in place so that the interior of his house is visible. “My door’s still open, sweetheart.” 

Louis shudders before he collects himself, and disgust overrides fear. “I wouldn’t let you fuck me if you were the last man in Panem, Kelvin,” he says flatly.

While his ears register the insults Kelvin spits at his back as he turns to leave again, his mind doesn’t seem able to quite process them. Mox is gone. 

Louis heads back home on autopilot. 

The garden looks splenderous, he notes distantly. He tries to calm himself among the sweet smelling flowers, ground himself in the dew drops that still cling to the petals the rising sun hasn’t reached yet. But it doesn’t work. A desperate need to do something has got hold of him, and he feels like he might suffocate if he doesn’t follow through with it. He has no idea what to do, however. 

Whenever he thinks of the long hours ahead, the silence in the house that won’t be disturbed again, his breathing speeds up. 

Louis hadn’t dared to hope he would get to keep Mox, but he thought he would have more time to get used to the idea of being alone again. 

In sudden inspiration, he collects an armful of different flowers, his heart rate slowing down as he buries his face in the bouquet for a minute. It speeds up again during the walk to the burial ground, though—the path longer and steeper than he remembered. The only time he had ever gone up had been for his mother’s funeral. 

Louis isn’t sure what drives him to go now. Except he hopes it might give him some… perspective, literal and figurative. Looking at the expanse of the district and the surrounding fields beyond the wall, and standing—all too alive—among the dead. It also serves to remind him of all the reasons Mox had to leave: the blood on his hands, and everything broken about him—starting with his body. 

When the mechanism in the wrist of his prosthetic arm catches, causing him to rip a handful of flower stems, Louis takes it off with a huff—something he has never done before in public—and in the next breath a curse.

His vision abruptly blurring with tears, he isn’t sure at first if he is imagining things. But he is still there after wiping his eyes. 

“Seo, what are you doing here?” he asks. 

Seo greets him with a warm smile. “Hey. What’s up, my boy?” 

“What are you doing here?” Louis repeats. He remembers now that Seo had called weeks before to tell him he would be visiting. But as usual Louis had lost track of the days, and hadn’t realised he had been due last night—arriving on the same train as Mox had been supposed to.

“My mom saw you coming up here from the window, to be honest.”

A strangled laugh escapes him in spite of himself. “That’s embarrassing.”

Seo’s answering smile is small, and short lived. “In eight years you’ve never come up here.” Taking a seat next to him on the iron bench, he nudges his shoulder. “What’s wrong?” 

Louis looks down at the prosthesis on his lap. Seo had been the first one to greet him when he woke up after the Games; he had been the one to explain what the doctors had had to do to save his life. Seo has seen him at his worst, known him at his worst. There is nothing to hide from him.

“I let myself hope,” he admits in a hushed voice, speaking slowly. “And now I don’t know what to do.” 

He feels stuck again, transported back to the garden of mud he had lain on all those months ago before Mox came around. Although he has a garden full of flowers now, in this moment all the progress is gone. 

Seo is silent for a long while. “One thing I’ve come to realise with time is how small our world was under Capitol rule,” he says in a low, intent voice, tucking his long hair behind his ear. “But it isn’t. There’s so much out there. So much to see. To do.” Pure wonder permeates his voice. “You need to get out there, Louis.”

Louis fiddles idly with the loose prosthetic finger. “What difference will it make, when I… carry everything with me wherever I go?” 

Seo shakes his head. “It all seems a little lighter, a little easier to carry after a while,” he says quietly. “Here or there, anywhere. The load gets a little lighter, believe me.”

If anyone can ask for that trust, it’s Seo. Louis was his second surviving tribute in the fifteen odd years he was a mentor. And he had killed in the games too. He has an army of ghosts behind him.

“Where do I start?” Louis asks. The same question he had asked him in their first meeting, sitting in front of him on the train towards the Capitol. A tribute and his mentor. 

Louis listens. 

-

He travels to the coast that same afternoon. 

Having had no interaction with the tributes from District 4 in his Games—one killed at the Cornucopia within minutes, and the other later eaten by wild dogs without ever crossing paths with Louis—means there aren’t ghosts waiting for him, to join the ones he brings himself, as there would be in other districts. 

District 4, whose main industry is fishing, had also been one of the districts least affected by the war. So Louis feels like his presence is less of an imposition. They put him up in a small cabin right at the beach: two rooms and white paint peeling from the wood boards. He isn’t in an isolated location, but no one bothers him except to teach him the meaning of the different beach safety flags, and to sell him the fish that is his main meal. 

Louis had seen the sea before, as a tribute, later a victor, and as a mentor, but never as just him, with no agenda to follow, no one to watch him or for him to watch over. It’s refreshing.

The water is cool in the morning, but warmer in the afternoon, he discovers. 

Though Louis doesn’t know how to swim, he ventures in over his knees, walks along the edge of the water tasting the salt in the air. 

His last experience with water had been a near drowning, but he’s strangely devoid of fear. He thinks he might be numb, but there is no familiar consuming emptiness. The nights are especially hard, however—even with the roar of the ocean and the sporadic screeching of the seagulls to ground and distract him. 

Louis barely sleeps for two nights, but he thinks, as he wakes up on the third morning, that despite the pain, he might survive this too. 

When the knock on the door comes that evening, his breath hitches in his chest—there is no mistaking that knock.

They stare at each other for a long moment in silence, before Mox lets out a strangled, relieved exhalation. “Louis,” he breathes.

Louis has to swallow a few times before he can speak. “You’re here. Why are you here?” 

It feels unreal, Mox silouhetted against the ocean backdrop. 

“You.” Mox clears his throat, shakes his head jerkily. “I’m here for you.”

“You left. Kelvin said—”

“Kelvin lied to you, and to me.” Mox rubs between his eyebrows. “I was an idiot. I could see that he… liked you, obviously. But I didn’t think he’d try to hurt you.”

Louis stares, uncomprehending. 

“I asked him to tell you I’d be gone a couple of days,” he explains. “He was the only one I could get through to in a hurry.” Reaching into a pocket, he pulls out a piece of paper. “I sent a message too. But it must have arrived too late. I found it out on the porch when I went to the house looking for you.”

Louis takes the offered paper automatically: it’s ripped, and washed out. It’s barely legible, but he can make out a few words: _days, soon, don’t worry_ —and it’s signed _Love, Mox_. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ is the only thing that comes to mind as he processes the turn of events. 

“I did. You didn’t pick up. You must have been out.”

It could well be. Louis had spent time outside in those two days, avoiding the emptiness of the house. “How did you find me?”

“Oli. Though it took some convincing for him to tell me where you were. He’s a tough nut… a bit nuts too.” 

Louis can’t help but breathe out a weak laugh at that. He had made Oli promise not to tell anyone—not that he’d expected anyone to come looking for him. “What did you tell him?”

“That I'd never leave you. That I'm in love with you.” Mox looks at him, his gaze warm, unwavering. In love. 

Louis’ heart rate picks up pace, but he doesn’t think it’s fear. 

“You were gone.” 

“Only for a couple of days,” Mox cuts in, words coming out in a rush. “I got delayed—it didn't arrive on time, and then the trains were suspended..." He grimaces. "But I was coming back. Of course I was coming back.”

“But where did you go?” Louis asks in confusion. "Not District 6?"

“Yes. But... not for work. I lied about that... sorry. I went to pick something up, actually… A gift, for you.” He lets out a short, humorless laugh. “It was meant to be a surprise. It did not work out like I'd hoped. I’m sorry.” Then, for the first time, Mox falters: “Did you really think I would leave you like that, Louis?” He sounds hurt, not angry. 

Louis considers him for a long minute. He has no reason not to believe him. The shock is numbing, but he can feel relief bubbling right beneath the surface. He glances down at the paper, shaking his head. “I just—You could have anyone, anything, Mox. Why would you choose me?”

Mox looks at him incredulously. “You're... my Nymphaea. You are everything and more than I could ever want. I can only hope you’ll keep choosing _me_.”

Blushing, Louis chokes on something between a laugh and an overwhelmed sob. “Do you mean it then?” he asks, eyes searching, jaw tight with emotion. “That you're not leaving—”

“For as long as you want me,” Mox confirms. “And I meant the second part too,” he adds, before Louis can gather the courage to ask. “I love you. I'm in love with you.”

Louis feels breathless, but so present. When he reaches out to touch Mox—his arms, his shoulders, his face—he’s completely grounded. “What did you go get anyway?” he asks, nose scrunched up. 

Mox exhales through his nose. “A blue lotus. I thought you’d like to see one. It’s a delicate flower, and I didn’t trust anyone else with it.” He reaches out to brush the back of his knuckles to Louis’ cheek. “My arrogance cost me.”

Louis shakes his head with another breathy laugh, tears springing to his eyes. “You are a 'botanical technician,' aren’t you. And it’s very valuable.”

“Sweetheart.” Mox thumbs under his eyes. “Nothing would be worth these tears.”

“These are happy ones,” Louis assures him, nuzzling into the palm of his hand.

Mox smiles, but it’s followed by a sigh. “I’m so sorry, Louis. I shouldn't have trusted Kelvin.”

“I shouldn’t have either. I know him better—” He shakes his head again. “I’m just... really happy you're here.” One arm around his shoulders, even though it means getting on his tiptoes, and the other around his middle, Louis hugs him tight. 

Mox spreads a large hand on his waist, wrapping his other arm around him. “I love you,” he says quietly.

Pulling back to find his lips, Louis kisses him, eager and a little desperate, but resolute. “I love you too. I _want_ you,” he breathes against his lips when they separate.

Mox kisses him again, running a hand down to his lower back, as the fingers on Louis’ waist tighten. “You want it? Are you sure?” he asks, a rough edge of arousal in his voice beneath the teasing.

Louis looks up at him beneath his eyelashes, splaying one hand on his chest. “I want it. Want you, inside me. Finally. I’m not upset, I’m happy. Give it to me already.”

The sound that escapes Mox is a mixture of groan and laugh. Hands beneath his thighs, he picks Louis up without warning, startling him. “Alright.”

He carries him to the bedroom, to the wide bed with its cool, white sheets and duvet. The window is cracked open, letting in a salty, cool breeze that makes Louis’ skin break out in goose pimples, despite the heat of his growing arousal. 

Lowering him onto the bed, Mox holds himself up over him, bracketing Louis between his arms. When he leans down to kiss his neck, Louis isn’t sure what it is that is making him shiver anymore. 

“Let me—” Mox mutters distractedly into his skin, kissing his collarbones, before making to stand up. Louis grasps at him instinctively. “Just going to close the window,” he explains. “You’re cold.”

“Yeah. Thank you.” Louis leans back on his elbows as Mox sprints to the window. 

“What a view,” he comments, as he turns to face Louis again, though he hadn’t taken more than a second to look out.

“It is.” Louis looks on with interest as Mox undresses himself, taking in his strong, supple body. “I’ve been collecting seashells and pebbles,” he tells him absently.

“Yeah?” Mox climbs onto the bed, in nothing but his underwear, the clearly visible outline of his hardening cock, making Louis’ mouth water. “You’ll have to show me.”

“They’re nothing special.” Louis reaches out to touch with his real hand, wanting to feel the heat, the smooth skin and the rough hair from his chest down his stomach, trailing between his legs. “You can see a hundred on a walk down the beach.”

He’s been sorting them out by colors, tracing out the textures and playing with them in his pocket instead of twisting his mechanical finger. Louis thinks that might be called progress. 

“I’ve spent half my life underground, sweetheart. The closest I'd been to the ocean was looking into your eyes,” Mox says, his tone unaffectedly matter of fact, as he gives him a light push to lie down flat.

Though he is laid out on display, Louis doesn’t feel like a plaything, but something precious, as Mox pulls his light sweater up to nip at his chest and tongue at his small nipples—an unfamiliar sensation that brings a spike of unexpected pleasure. 

“You’ve got a poet in you after all,” Louis teases. The next second he has to bite back a moan as Mox continues down his chest, mouthing wetly around his navel.

Mox hums. “Not really. It’s just a fact.” After a last biting kiss to Louis’ stomach, he moves back up so they are face to face. “You’ve got beautiful eyes.” He leans down to give him a hard, heated kiss that steals Louis’ breath and makes him whimper. “Beautiful lips,” he murmurs, running his hands down Louis’ sides along the concave curve of his waist to his hips, before hooking his fingers in the waistline of his sweatpants. “Beautiful everything.” When he tugs down it’s no more than to ask: “Going to let me see?”

In answer, Louis raises his hips to help Mox undress him, though he can’t help but turn his face into the pillow shyly. 

“Fuck, sweetheart.” Mox sits back on his knees between Louis’ legs to look at him, cradling his pelvis with both hands, before sliding down to grip his thighs, spreading them a bit wider. “Look at you.” 

Louis’ face burns, but his cock is so hard, and he wants Mox to keep looking, keep touching. “Mox,” he whines.

Mox wraps his large hand around Louis’ cock, stroking him slowly, thumbing at the head to spread the wetness. No one has touched him in ages, and Louis gasps, his hips rolling to follow the movement. He clutches at Mox’s arm instinctively—the grip too tight, he realises, when Mox stops. 

“OK?” he asks, cautiously, attentive. 

Louis has to work the mechanical fingers open, his stomach in knots. He had forgotten, in the heat of the moment, let himself forget— “Sorry. I’m sorry. I need to get this fixed, and the humidity is messing with it…” he apologises in a small voice. The awareness that while he can fix the prosthesis, there is so much he isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to fix, burns the back of his throat.

To his surprise, Mox chuckles. “Shush.” Grabbing hold of both of his hands, he pushes them back onto the bed at either side of Louis’ head. A loose grip on his wrists, he bends down to kiss him—softer than Louis expected. “I love every bit of you, every piece of you,” he whispers, looking at him in the eye. 

Breathing in deep, Louis closes his eyes tight. “You're going to have to get up, because the lube is in the bathroom,” he blurts out, between playful and shy.

Mox laughs, and kisses him again before going in search of it.

Louis takes a moment to appreciate Mox’s broad, muscled back and long, strong legs, before turning around onto his stomach. 

He hears the pause in his footsteps when Mox comes back into the room and sees him in position. The sheets feel cool against his hot face as Mox climbs back onto the bed and kisses up the back of one thigh, while running his hand up the other, teasing the sensitive skin, pulling lightly at his arse cheek to tease his hole.

He does it once more before draping himself over Louis, chest to back, his hard cock nestled between Louis’ arse cheeks. “Gonna make you feel so good, sweetheart,” he murmurs against Louis’ ear, sending shivers down his spine. “Gonna give it to you so good.”

It takes Louis a moment to realise the light, airy moan he heard was him. “ _Please._ ”

After a minute of hot, teasing pressure, Mox rolls them onto their sides, nuzzling at his nape. An arm around Louis, he undulates his hips—his cock slotted in place so that the wet head brushes against Louis' rim with every other wave of movement. 

Louis moans, gropes back to grasp at Mox’s thighs, urging him closer. “Mox, please.”

It doesn’t take long for Mox to slip a hand between his legs, fingers slick and searching. He stretches him open, slow but sure, as he rocks lightly behind him. 

Although Louis thinks he could come like that, it’s not what he wants right now. “Come on, get inside me already,” he groans. 

“There—” Mox groans as he pushes in, slow, giving him time, which Louis can’t help but appreciate. “There we go. Fuck, you feel good.”

Louis whimpers. “You too, but—you’re big, fuck.”

Mox lifts his leg slightly with an arm around his thigh. “Nice and easy,” he murmurs. “You’re taking it so well, sweetheart.”

Their hands lock together on Louis’ stomach until he bottoms out after a minute. 

“Good?” he asks, giving his hand a squeeze.

Louis nods, squeezing back. “So, so good,” he replies honestly.

Tentatively at first, Mox starts moving, soon developing a rhythm. He fucks him slow and deep, occasionally pulling out to the head before pushing back inside, which draws a pleasured whine out of Louis every time.

“You feel amazing,” Mox moans. Running his hand down to Louis’ cock, he wraps his whole hand around him and strokes him with a tight grip.

“I’ll come,” Louis warns, voice high pitched, as heat pools at his groin. 

“Wait,” Mox instructs, and something in his tone only makes it harder. He pulls out, carefully, and encourages him to lie on his back, a hand on the inside of his knees to keep his legs spread. “Want to see you when you come.”

Hooking his legs over his shoulders, practically folding Louis in half, Mox guides himself back in. Louis likes seeing him too, the strong line of his jaw, the furrow in his brow. 

“Feel so good inside me.” His mechanical fingers slip for a second as he reaches up to hold onto Mox, but before he can even think of feeling embarrassed or bad, Mox is leading his arms back around his neck and kissing him, hot and tight. 

Louis holds on, whimpering with every thrust, clutching at him as he quickly nears orgasm again. 

“That's it. Let me see you, hear you.” Mox grunts, eyes fixed on Louis’ face, one arm wrapped around one of his legs, and his other hand gripping his arse, keeping his hips lifted.

Face scrunching up as the pleasure builds, Louis touches himself—In a matter of seconds he’s coming with a cry, spilling onto his fingers, tightening spasmodically around Mox, who groans. “Fuck, fuck, Louis.” Grabbing his hand to press wet, eager kisses to his hand, Mox nips at his fingertips, tasting him, as he speeds up his thrusts, going deep. 

Louis digs his prostheticl fingers into his shoulder, urging him down for a kiss. “Let me feel you,” he whispers, still breathless from his orgasm.

Coming inside of him, Mox holds deep for a long minute, panting against the side of his neck. 

It’s the perfect kind of ache when he pulls out, and Louis can put his legs down. He exhales in a whoosh, with a light sound.

Mox chuckles. “Satisfied?” he asks, smiling, lying down beside him, raised on one elbow, his other hand on Louis’ stomach, thumbing at the trace of stickiness below his navel.

“If it’s OK with you,” Louis says, looking at him out of the corner of his eye playfully, but with a real hint of bashfulness. “We’re going to be doing that a lot.”

Laughing, Mox leans in to press kisses to his face. “If you give me ten minutes we can do it again right now,” he says. 

Giggling, Louis chases after his mouth so they can kiss properly. They smile at each other, and in that moment, he feels like maybe even broken, he can be happy, things can be good. 

-

They spend a week at the beach house, discovering each other, the tang of sea salt in their kisses, the scent of it caught in the sheets.   
Louis collects more seashells with Mox, who gives him some swimming lessons—these were obligatory in District 13 as a basic survival skill. But what Louis likes best is clambering onto his back and being carried around—his feet in the water, pressing the occasional kiss to Mox’s jaw—and then to bed. 

The cottage in District 4 is peaceful and wonderful, but Louis has a garden to care for at home.

And District 3 will always be home. 

Even full of ghosts,. These go with him everywhere, anyway. And it turns out that the distance Seo spoke about doesn’t have to be literal. With time, the distance grows on its own. 

Against what is buried—literally and metaphorically—he can plant, and as the flowers grow and bloom, some of the darkness fades.

It’s not quite enough, however, to keep it at bay. 

-

Louis doesn’t really plan for it, however. 

At times over the years he had thought about it, but the words were locked inside of him. Until one morning, as summer turns to fall, when he wakes up—too early—and carefully gets out of bed so as not to wake Mox. The silk house robe he uses to cover his nakedness soon won’t be enough against the increasing chill. 

He sits outside on the porch, the fresh scent of flowers in the air from the garden, as the sky lightens. As the sun crests the horizon, all of a sudden the words are there, at his fingertips, if not at his tongue. 

Dashing inside, he finds paper and writes, ink dotting his fingers.

When Mox wanders downstairs, there is an empty cup of tea and another one abandoned halfway through next to him on the kitchen table, and his hand is cramped. 

He bends down to nuzzle at his hair, a hand on his shoulder with a murmured greeting. “What are you up to?” he asks, as he walks over to the fill the kettle. 

“I have no idea,” Louis answers honestly. 

Mox gives him a thoughtful look. “Does it help?” he says after a moment. 

Louis’ forehead wrinkles. “I’m not sure it will help anyone—”. 

Mox shakes his head. “ _You_ , sweetheart. Does it help _you_?” 

Looking down at the pages filled with his messy scrawl, Louis considers the question. “I think so.”

Biting into a biscuit, Mox smiles. “Good,” he says simply. 

Louis gets to his feet, stretching out his back before walking up to Mox, who automatically slides the loose knot of the house robe open to touch him, his hands warm on Louis’ bare skin. “I shouldn’t have bothered getting dressed, hm?”

Louis giggles, shoulders hunching and head dipping at the ticklish, tintillating sensation as Mox slides up and down the curve of his waist, before sneaking one hand back to grope at his arse.

“Well… that’s up to you. But I’m definitely up for it. If you don’t mind waiting for breakfast.” He knows how much Mox enjoys morning sex, with Louis more often than not still a bit loose from the night before. 

It comes as no surprise when Mox’s fingers move to tease at his hole, but it still makes his breath catch. “Breakfast can definitely wait,” he says, pulling him closer and into a heated kiss. 

They end up having brunch. 

-

“Won’t you be giving them exactly what they want?” Zayn asks when Louis mentions his plans on the phone. “They’re gagging for a taste of the glory days, what it used to be like. And you want to tell stories of the Games?”

“I’m not going to tell them the stories they want to hear. Just the truth.” His truth at least. In fact, Louis doesn't have tantalizing secrets, any form of dirty laundry. He only has pain. And love—for the tributes, his district… all of Panem, who has suffered under Cowell’s tyrannical rule. He doesn’t expect Zayn’s next question. 

“Aren’t you scared?” It’s quiet and tentative. 

Louis looks down at his prosthetic arm, drums his artificial fingers, the movement smoother now that he’s had the prosthesis updated. 

“I need to get it out,” he whispers. “It’s poison, like you said.”

Zayn remains silent for a long minute. “It’s long overdue,” he says finally.

So Louis writes. He draws out the poison, little by little. On the bad days, Mox holds him, and Oli distracts him, and his garden of flowers, even in winter time, sustains him, entertains him.

He still counts to twelve at times—tapping it out now, rather than twisting his prosthetic finger—but he still hears the cannons as he stepped into that arena, as his fellow tributes died one by one—in his Games and in the ones after, and also the ones before his time. 

Death and pain still haunt him. But he gets letters, from citizens of different districts, who can relate. There is a kinship in their shared pain, whatever form it takes for each person. 

Louis wonders if that is what Mox meant about District 13 being a unit: you don’t feel quite as alone when you think of yourself as part of a whole—not a piece in a game, but a people, united.

His writing is a bit of a purge, a bit of a balm for many of them. 

He gets letters even from some former Capitol citizens—a few, overdramatic and self centered, for whom he knows he is still a fiction for their entertainment; but there are others, who listen, who learn, who feel with him and his people. Maybe some day they can all be one people.

There’s an ache, a heaviness in his heart that will never lift, Louis knows. But it's better. It gets better. He’s better. He’s not alone. 

For the first time, he believes there can be life after the Hunger Games, after all. 


End file.
